If Sharmila Bhattacharya wasn’t Program Scientist for Space Biology at NASA Headquarters, she’d probably be an actress. And while her contributions on stage would likely be legendary, we’re happy to have her at NASA learning about how space affects human biology. We talked with her about the challenges that scientists face, her proudest achievement (it’s not science-related), and that aforementioned theater performance.  This episode was produced by Shane M Hanlon and mixed by Collin Warren. Transcript Shane M Hanlon: I’m an ecologist by training. I spent all of grad school outside in rural Tennessee hanging out with frogs, salamanders, and turtles. The lab I was in wasn’t exactly well-funded so we had to work with the limited resources we had. I’ve heard stories from folks about the weird Walmart runs they’ve had but for me it was more about my dual role as scientist and groundskeeper. One day, after weed wacking, (or eating, whatever you call it) around one of our outdoor areas where did experiments, I slowly noticed that I was having some trouble breathing. Not shortness of breath – trouble getting the area through my throat into my lungs. I realized that my throat was closing up. When I was wacking earlier, I had failed to notice that there was poison ivy mixed in with everything else, so when machine hit the ivy, it threw little particles into the air that I ended up breathing in. As my throat was closing, I made a call to my doctor who wrote me an emergency prescription for a steroid and suggested I immediately chow down on some Beonydryl. I ended up being OK and after a few days I was back to normal. I now have a house w/ some land and love doing yard work…but I’m always on especially high alert for poison ivy Shane M Hanlon: Everyone has a story, even, or maybe especially, scientists. Science affects each and every one of us. Let's talk about it. From the American Geophysical Union, I'm Shane Hanlon, and this is Sci & Tell. Shane M Hanlon: Welcome to episode TWO of Sci & Tell. If you missed our kickoff with Karen St. Germain, it’s one up in your feed or at sciandtell.org. For this episode we chatted with Sharmila Bhattacharya, Chief Scientist for Astrobionics at NASA Ames Research Center. Basically, she studies how space affects humans. And while she doesn’t have a story about poison ivy, she’s definitely had some interesting encounters in the field. Our interviewer was Paul Molin. Sharmila Bhattacharya: So my name is Sharmila Bhattacharya, and I work for NASA, NASA headquarters. And so, I'm a scientist. And my role is, I'm the program scientist for NASA Space biology program. So this is a program that's interested in looking at the fundamental biology of how systems respond to the space environment. And so, my job specifically is to help NASA make strategic plans and prioritize the science that we do so that we can keep, so we understand how to sustain habitation as well as exploration, when astronauts go into deep space for periods of time, we have to understand how to keep them safe, how to send food with them, and all of this good stuff, as well as do science, alongside that to understand the underlying changes that happen to systems in space, so that in the big picture, then at the end of the day, we can keep humans safe in space. Sharmila Bhattacharya: As you know,