Welcome back to Growing Worlds: Season 2 begins

Hello everyone and welcome back to Growing Worlds, the podcast where we explore the science of exoplanets through conversations with early career researchers on the frontline of discovery. If you are here, you have probably already survived the whole first season of exoplanets with us. So first of all, thank you for tuning in. I'm Lorenzo.

and I'm Jenny. This is our short welcome back episode. It's just a few minutes to tell you what season two is gonna look like and to introduce a few new faces, or well voices, because it's a podcast, so there are no faces. But we do wanna let you know about who is joining us behind the scenes.

Because a few things have changed since we last posted you. And we wanted to catch up before we diving back into the science. But don't take that ominously, and I realize now how ominous that sounds. They are good changes,

Yeah.

I promise, and we are very excited about them.

Hmm, but talking of things like you're being ominous being a little bit off I have just realized the irony and what I said about introducing a new voice because the new voice can't actually join us today So I

Twitter.

guess what you're getting is a description of someone new through old voices So if you're just as confused as I am I think it's probably time we went back to discuss something that many of you will know and love And that is of course season one. season one, season one took us from the aerial space mission all the way to clouds and star spots and citizen science and even earth as an exoplanet. And we spoke to postdocs and PhD shooters, people scattered right across our funny little planet.

And although we covered so many fascinating topics, there was a single glittering thread joining them all together. Every single one of these fantastic people that join us answer our signature question. Which chalestal body represents you and why?

And we got into the action too. we answered that same question for ourselves at the end of the season in the special final episode for season one. So if you have not caught up yet, go back and listen to us lay our souls bare.

And of course, that'll give you a flavour of what we've got coming up in Season 2 of Growing Wills! Look at that! Season 2 already! I know!

time fine. So let's start with an update on someone we already met. You already met Carrie Stansen, our assistant producer, who you might remember joining us properly on the microphone for our season one special episode. and you might have seen her on our social.

So Karis has actually finished her studies since we last spoke. So congratulations to Karis.

Congratulations.

Yeah. But do not worry. She's still with us as an assistant producer and still working behind the scenes, editing, attempting to keep us on track and genuinely making sure we sound like we know what we're doing.

And she's not doing this alone anymore. Over the summer Robin Brunett joined the team. Robin is also an MSc student from Discord, and she has now joined Caris behind the scene helping shaping the podcast alongside her.

So it is a very warm Growing Worlds welcome to Robin. Even though you won't hear her voice today. but she is very much part of Growing Worlds from now on.

And now here is the bigger news. Over the coming year, Growing Worlds is going to grow a little. You see what we did here? Growing worlds is gonna grow because we have decided

It's so clever. It's so clever.

to try to push the podcast in a more student driven direction.

And what that means in practice is that throughout the year, we are going to be bringing in other students to train and work alongside us.

They will help us expand and just as importantly, they will bring their own ideas and their own perspective to the show. So the growing worlds you hear by the end of this season might sound a little different from the one you heard in season one, and that is very much intentional.

Because we think that this actually fits perfectly with the whole theme of the podcast because the podcast has always been about early career researchers building the future of the field. And so, you know, we're telling all of these stories and it felt a little bit strange to tell those stories, but then without also making space for very early career people to kind of help build the podcast. so...

We are changing that and we want to make sure that there's, you know, we're bringing people in and raising them up so that they can springboard off to their own fascinating careers.

So yeah, expect some new names and maybe new voices to pop up over the coming months alongside the two of us.

But do not panic, do not worry, the heart of the show is not changing. We're still going to be sitting down with early career researchers from all over the world still asking about the science and of course the person behind it all.

And yes, I know you are all worried about the celestial self question is absolutely insane. We would not dream of removing it.

definitely not. It is my favourite part of the show. I just love just we just watch people panic, right? When this question comes up and then they end up uttering something that's so mind-bogglingly eloquent. It kind of gives me an existential crisis and I need to lie down with a shot of something to sip while I like question my own life choices. And you know, what a podcast for if you're not questioning your own life choices, right? So that is season two in a nutshell. There's going to be some familiar faces slash voices, I guess, a couple of new ones join in behind the scenes. You're to have a podcast that's slowly shaped by more hands than just hours.

And we have some brilliant guests lined up already, so do not go anywhere. Stay here.

Thanks for sticking with us and welcome back to Grown Worlds. Let's go!