Plain Speaking - A University College Cork Podcast
Welcome to Plain Speaking, a podcast from University College Cork. On this podcast you will hear from Irish and global experts on the issues that surround us. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and Spotify or listen below.
Episodes
We are a small country and I think we have an opportunity and an obligation to represent the interests and values of small countries.
Ambassador Dan Mulhall
Ireland's Ambassador to the United States of America
Image Credit: Pixabay
Ireland's Ambassador to the United States, Dan Mulhall, joins the podcast to discuss the continued relevance of Irish America and diplomacy in a time of increasing nationalism throughout the world.
Image Credit: Pixabay
It is highly improbable that the only life in the universe is the life on this planet
Professor Katie Mack
Theoretical Astrophysicist
The Milky Way © Pexels Pixababy
How has our understanding of the universe changed overtime, how will our universe end and are we alone? Katie Mack is Assistant Professor of Physics at North Carolina State University and joins us on episode four of Plain Speaking to discuss these questions.
Katie is a theoretical astrophysicist who studies a range of questions in cosmology, the study of the universe from beginning to end. Throughout her career she has studied dark matter, the early universe, galaxy formation, black holes, cosmic strings, and the ultimate fate of the cosmos. Alongside her academic research, she is an active science communicator and has been published in a number of popular publications such as Scientific American, Slate, Sky & Telescope, Time.com, and Cosmos Magazine, where she is a columnist. You can find her on Twitter as @AstroKatie.
Image Credit: The Milky Way © Pexels Pixababy
There are far more jobs year on year in the creative industries, than there are in finance
Lord David Puttnam
Award-winning independent film producer.
Image: Justine Walpole (c)
In episode three, Lord David Puttnam joins the podcast to discuss the value of the arts and humanities. Lord Puttnam spent thirty years as an independent producer of award-winning films including The Killing Fields, Chariots of Fire and Bugsy Malone. Together these films won ten Oscars, ten golden globes, twenty-five Baftas and the Palme D'Or at Cannes.
Image Credit - Justine Walpole
More Americans have died from the opioid crisis than World War 1 and World War 2 put together
Professor Keith Humphreys
Stanford University
Episode 2In episode two, Keith Humphreys, former drug adviser to the Obama and Bush White Houses and the Esther Ting Memorial Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University, joins the podcast to outline how America's opioid crisis occurred, and what other countries can learn from it.
image credit - pixabay
I think that history will be very unkind to us if we don't act now.
Mary Robinson
Former Irish President and Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Episode 1In episode one we discuss climate change with former Irish President, Mary Robinson, who also served as a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mary Robinson now leads the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. This is a centre for thought leadership, education and advocacy on the struggle to secure global justice for those people vulnerable to the impacts of climate change who are usually forgotten – the poor, the disempowered and the marginalised across the world.