Fail-Safe Science
Hello! Welcome to the Fail-Safe Science podcast. Fail-Safe Science is a video repository of successful scientists sharing stories about challenges they experienced during graduate school, how they overcame them, and advice they have for current grads. Ultimately, we created this repository to help science graduate students realize that they are not alone in the challenges they face.
To accompany the repository, each week we will be dropping an audio-only podcast version of one of the videos.
Check back each week to listen to the latest featured scientist!
Listen on:
Episodes
Monday Sep 15, 2025
Monday Sep 15, 2025
Dr. Matt Wund is a Professor in the Biology Department at The College of New Jersey, a primarily undergraduate institution, in Ewing, NJ. Matt’s PhD research focused on echolocation in bats, and during his postdoc, switched to behavior, evolution, and phenotypic plasticity in stickleback fish, which he continues now. Here, Matt discusses his experience with failing his comprehensive exams on his first attempt.
Music: Auroras by Steven Beddall (courtesy of Artlist.io)
Podcast Resources:
Transcript: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10MZ4YKmA15tCSEeiGZkXmnsd4I6_HxRw/view?usp=drive_link
Scientist Info: Matt Wund
Lab Website: https://wund-lab.pages.tcnj.edu/
University Profile: https://science.tcnj.edu/science_faculty/matthew-wund/
Fail-Safe Science Repository: https://risecenter.asu.edu/fail-safe
Nominate a scientist for the repository: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSevRFJqi8zYb1HTa_ppo2s6H962Ks_NgYSe1sQwbvE8KRU9ng/viewform?pli=1
International Postgraduate Mental Health Alliance (MHA): https://www.ispmha.com/
Mental Health Resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14G5m91FLPY5gZSHUzWXAQ4Jnm4uX9AS0yhypus3gsuQ/edit?usp=sharing
Land Acknowledgement Resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10lLcxY7OSsuTnXyq_CSC5Wvst8MSMRurisBfX5hK7AI/edit?tab=t.0