Broadcast nationally in 2010

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Part of the “Grand Challenges” series from the Purdue University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Purdue College of Engineering.   A fact that stands out over all the noise of the health-care debate is that it costs one-billion-dollars to put a new medicine in your doctor’s hand.  And while a number that big is going to pose some questions, drug companies today are turning out some real game changers.

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Part of the series “Arabesque: Music of the Arab World” produced for ArtsEdge at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Musicians from across the Arab World join Georges Collinet (Afropop Worldwide) to discuss and demonstrate the diverse musical culture of diverse Arabic nations, their common musical roots, and where they believe Arabic music is headed.

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Part of the series “Arabesque: Music of the Arab World” produced for ArtsEdge at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Georges Collinet (Afropop Worldwide) is joined by scholars and musicians to explore unique elements of Arabic musical culture, including improvisation, ornamentation, audience participation, and the state of “musical ecstasy.”

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Part of the series “Arabesque: Music of the Arab World” produced for ArtsEdge at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  Host Georges Collinet (Afropop Worldwide) explores the fascinating history and sounds of musical instruments of the Arab World, many of which are direct ancestors of modern Western musical instruments.

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In the early 1960s, the segregated heart of the old Confederacy was chosen as the base for new agency, NASA. Hear the stories of people whose lives soared from the cotton fields to the launch pad.

Listen at the Cape Cosmos site (click here, then click “Podcasts”)

Stories of women struggling in the ultimate “Man’s World,” NASA in the 60s and 70s.  Hear from the first women scientists and engineers, the first women astronauts and from women who, in 1961, were told they would be astronauts.

Listen at the Cape Cosmos site (click here, then click “Podcasts”)

A look at how the Democrats rode Sputnik to the White House in a campaign that forever changed science, technology and academia in America.

Broadcast nationally in 2009

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Part of the “Global Challenges” series, produced for the Purdue University College of Engineering. No question there’s plenty of bad news when it comes to the environment. But in this program we hear about scientists and engineers who are working, right now, on some of the tools we hope will lift us out of our environmental malaise.

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Part of the series “American Classics,” produced for ArtsEdge at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.   While Vivaldi in Italy, Bach in Germany, and their contemporary George Frideric Handel, in England, were writing marvelous and sophisticated music, America was a backwater. If you looked for classical music in the early days of America, you’d be hard pressed to find it, even in the big cities and the centers of wealth, commerce, and social sophistication. But it was there; in some odd locations including the backwoods of North Carolina and the Port of New Orleans. Miles Hoffman, Morning Edition music commentator and dean of the Petrie School of Music at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina takes us on a tour of classical music in early America.

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Part of the series “American Classics,” produced for ArtsEdge at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. This segment looks at some little-known stories about American Classical music like the role of Cuba in Classical Music and the American who made “Carmen” a hit. Miles Hoffman, Morning Edition music commentator and dean of the Petrie School of Music at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina takes us on a tour of classical music in early America.