BornCurious

In storytelling, can the personal be universal? For the animator and filmmaker Domee Shi, the answer is a resounding yes. In this episode, Shi talks with Ju Yon Kim, a Harvard professor, about how she’s turned her own personal history into successful Pixar movies.

Released on March 5, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Ju Yon Kim is the Patsy Takemoto Mink Professor of English at Harvard University. 

Domee Shi is an Academy Award–winning director, writer, and storyteller and a creative vice president at Pixar.

Related Content

Domee Shi Biography

Bao

Turning Red

Elio

Ju Yon Kim Biography

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Many think of plants as passive, but in fact, these organisms display complex behaviors—and we have much to learn from them. In this episode, we continue our conversation with the plant scientist Beronda L. Montgomery, who wrote about the wisdom of the natural world in Lessons from Plants (Harvard University Press, 2021).

Released on February 5, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Beronda L. Montgomery is a writer and scientist who studies how plants and photosynthetic bacteria perceive, respond to, and are impacted by environments in which they exist. She is the author, most recently, of When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical History (Henry Holt, 2026).

Related Content

Beronda L. Montgomery Fellowship Bio

Beronda L. Montgomery Personal Website

Lessons from Plants

Episode 504: The Stories Trees Hold—America’s Black Botanical Legacy

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

The history of African American people in the United States is inextricably linked to the cotton shrub, but seven other species of tree also have deep meaning for this community. In this episode, we learn about these trees from the plant scientist Beronda L. Montgomery, who has just published a book examining America’s Black botanical legacy.

Released on January 22, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Beronda L. Montmogery is a writer and scientist who studies how plants and photosynthetic bacteria perceive, respond to, and are impacted by environments in which they exist. She is the author, most recently, of When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical History (Henry Holt, 2026).

Related Content

Beronda L. Montgomery Fellowship Bio

Beronda L. Montgomery Personal Website

What Can We Learn from the Trees That Witnessed Our History? (Boston Globe, 1/29/26)

Episode 505: Our Plant Teachers

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

GuestRelated ContentCredits

On This Episode

Although as many women as men enter medical school, six years after graduating from their residencies, 40 percent of women have either transitioned to part-time or left the profession altogether. Why? The answer is career and life demands that lead to higher burnout rates. In this episode, Ashwini Nadkarni, who coled a seminar on the topic, talks about the ramifications of this—for both doctors and patients—and some potential remedies.

Released on December 17, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Ashwini Nadkarni is a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital—where she is vice chair of faculty enrichment and associate medical director of Brigham Psychiatric Specialties—and a professor at Harvard Medical School. With her colleague John Fromson, Nadkarni led a Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar that addressed burnout among women physicians.

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Ashwini Nadkarni: Professional Bio and Personal Website

“Reducing Burnout in Women Physicians: An Organizational Roadmap from the Harvard Radcliffe Institute Exploratory Seminar,” Journal of Women's Health

Stanford Model of Professional Well-Being

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Rachna Reddy has spent more than a decade observing chimpanzees in the wild, tracking how they grow up, navigate friendship, rivalry, loss, and even the anxieties that come with adolescence—emotions that might feel surprisingly familiar to us. In this episode, she shares how her research sheds light on what it means to come of age—not just for chimps but for humans, too, revealing the roots of our own empathy, conflict, and connection.

Released on November 20, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Rachna Reddy teaches anthropology and environment, society, and sustainability at the University of Utah, and she also codirects the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project. Through her study of chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living relatives, she is trying to understand the evolutionary foundations of human social relationships and development.

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Fellowship Biography: Rachna Reddy

Ngogo Chimpanzee Project

Series: Chimp Empire

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.