About your hosts

Tessa Fisher is a happily married PhD candidate and possibly the world’s only openly trans lesbian astrobiologist. Her research is primarily focused on using network theory to hopefully develop better ways of detecting biospheres on exoplanets based on their atmospheric composition. When she’s not doing science, her hobbies include burlesque dancing, singing in her city’s LGBT women’s chorus, yoga, and writing LGBT-positive science fiction and fantasy. She resides with her wife in Phoenix, AZ, along with a fairly aloof bearded dragon

Charles Wallace is an entomologist, specializing in systematics. He is a current PhD candidate in ASU’s School of Life Sciences, having come here to focus on history/philosophy of systematics and taxonomy, especially as regards the clade Dictyoptera (mantises, roaches, termites). Outside of academia, he is an avid macro photographer, baker, and jigsaw puzzle enthusiast. He has three beloved cats and three pretty well-managed anxiety disorders.