Amplifying Research

About Amplifying Research

You’re listening to Amplifying Research with Chris Pahlow. After 15 years working as a professional storyteller, I’m now on a mission to help make sure that incredible research all around the world generates real impact with the help of effective engagement and communication. Find out more at https://www.amplifyingresearch.com/pod

Publisher

Chris Pahlow

Category

business · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

25 Jan 2024

Latest episode

21 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

51 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   21 Sept 2026

   50. Collaborative Research – AI: Dr Sawsan Khuri on what happens to trust when your team starts using AI

   View the full show notes, including a summary of practical tips on the Amplifying Research website: https://www.amplifyingresearch.com/podcast/50-sawsan-khuri Generative AI has quickly become part of how many researchers work. But in most teams, the conversation about how it's being used, which tools are trusted, and who's checking the outputs simply hasn't happened yet. Dr Sawsan Khuri argues that transparency is key if we want AI to strengthen, rather than fracture, our research collaborations. She talks us through practical tips for bringing AI into your team's work openly. This is the final episode in our three-part miniseries based on the book How to Succeed at Collaborative Research, co-authored by Sawsan, Howard Gadlin, and Dr L. Michelle Bennett. All three authors join the conversation — Michelle and Howard open the episode by sharing where they each sit with AI right now, before Sawsan takes the deep dive on what it means for collaborative research. The series wraps up with each author offering a final takeaway from the book. Sawsan teaches medical genetics at the University of Exeter and runs a consulting company, Collaborative Capacities. She describes herself as an AI practitioner — someone who uses multiple AI platforms daily in her research, navigates the thorny challenge of assessing students when AI-generated answers are everywhere, and works with research teams to build the transparency habits she advocates for in this episode. In episode 48, Michelle explored the collaborative mindset: the self-awareness, trust, and structured agreements that hold a team together. In episode 49, Howard unpacked what decades of mediating scientific disputes taught him about turning conflict into something productive. This episode extends those same principles — trust, transparency, open conversation — into the fast-moving territory of AI. "If there are skeptics in that room, you need to also bring them into that task. You're inviting them into the game by saying, 'Would you check it for me?' Be very transparent about what prompts you're using so that people can check you and check the results. That way you've started that two-way communication about let's do this together as a team." — Sawsan Khuri Whether you're a research leader trying to set a team-wide approach to AI, an operations lead looking for practical frameworks to guide the conversation, or an early-career researcher wondering whether it's OK to admit you've been using ChatGPT — this episode offers a concrete, non-judgmental path forward Our conversation covers: How researchers are using generative AI right now: literature search, information gathering, and beyond The three layers of transparency: what you're using AI for, which tool and why, and how you're checking the outputs Trust at three levels — trusting yourself with prompts, trusting the tool, and earning your team's trust The counterintuitive way to bring AI skeptics on board Agentic AI: Stanford's virtual lab of AI agents and what it means for interdisciplinary research Vibe coding and the checks and balances it demands Why governance and regulation are coming to academic AI use Human curiosity and integrative thinking How to start the AI conversation if your team hasn't had one yet A cautionary tale: what happened when grad students used AI to write code without telling anyone The series wrap-up: each author's final takeaway from How to Succeed at Collaborative Research Find Sawsan online: LinkedIn —  https://www.linkedin.com/in/sawsan-khuri Collaborative Capacities — https://collaborativecapacities.com Find Howard online: LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/howard-gadlin-850431b5 Find Michelle online: LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/l-michelle-bennett-50855a10 LMBennett Consulting — https://www.lmbennettconsulting.com Things mentioned: How to Succeed at Collaborative Research Collaboration and Team Science: A Field Guide Stanfor

2. 

   24 Aug 2026

   49: Collaborative Research – Managing Conflict: Howard Gadlin on what decades of mediating scientific disputes taught him about productive conflict

   View the full show notes, including a summary of practical tips on the Amplifying Research website: https://www.amplifyingresearch.com/podcast/49-howard-gadlin Every collaboration starts with excitement — shared interests, complementary expertise, a vision of what you could build together. But things rarely stay perfect forever. Personalities might clash. Contributions might not get recognised. Commitments might not be kept. Decisions on authorship might be delayed — or even reneged on. Howard Gadlin spent decades as an ombudsman at the NIH, UCLA, and Harvard, sitting across the table from research teams in exactly these moments — and what he learned is that the disputes we're most tempted to avoid are often the ones that matter most. This is the second episode in our three-part miniseries based on the book How to Succeed at Collaborative Research, co-authored by Howard, Dr L. Michelle Bennett. Howard started his career as a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts, where a two-year stint as the faculty ombudsman turned into a decade. He gave up tenure to take the role full-time at UCLA, where he specialised in identity-based disputes, before moving to the NIH — where he spent years mediating scientific conflicts and began to see the patterns that would shape his prevention-focused approach to collaboration. Along the way, he co-authored the NIH's Collaboration and Team Science Field Guide with Michelle. "The only people more foolish than people falling in love are people starting a collaboration. They think just the passion of this shared interest is going to carry them through. It doesn't work that way." — Howard Gadlin Whether you're a research leader trying to understand why the same interpersonal tensions keep surfacing in your teams, an operations lead looking for practical frameworks to bring to team facilitation, or a junior researcher wondering whether it's safe to speak up about a conflict — this episode offers both the reassurance that these disputes are normal and the tools to handle them well. Our conversation covers: Why the most common scientific disputes — authorship, mentor-mentee dynamics, team dysfunction — keep recurring across teams Howard's journey from psychology professor to career ombudsman — and why he gave up tenure to do this work A detailed case study: mediating between a junior scientist and three senior researchers at the NIH Positions vs underlying interests — why "I want first authorship" is never the whole story The five emotional dimensions of disputes: affiliation, appreciation, outcomes, role, and status Why recurring conflicts are usually systemic, not personal — and what that means for leaders Shared leadership: why the intellectual leader and the socio-emotional leader don't have to be the same person "Hyperactive listening" — why asking questions matters more than offering solutions What an ombuds office actually does — and why it's completely confidential How entire disciplines (like neuroscience) emerged from productive conflict Find Howard online: LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/howard-gadlin-850431b5 Find Michelle online: LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/l-michelle-bennett-50855a10 LMBennett Consulting — https://www.lmbennettconsulting.com Find Sawsan online: LinkedIn —  https://www.linkedin.com/in/sawsan-khuri Collaborative Capacities — https://collaborativecapacities.com Things mentioned: How to Succeed at Collaborative Research Collaboration and Team Science: A Field Guide

3. 

   3 Aug 2026

   48. Collaborative Research – Mindset: Dr L. Michelle Bennett on building the collaborative mindset researchers are almost never taught

   View the full show notes, including a summary of practical tips on the Amplifying Research website: https://www.amplifyingresearch.com/podcast/48-l-michelle-bennett Most research teams believe they collaborate well — until the first real disagreement, the first authorship dispute, or the first time someone bites their tongue instead of speaking up. Researchers are rigorously trained in methodology but given almost no preparation for the relational skills that hold a collaboration together — and when tension rises, most default to a self-protective mode that quietly erodes trust, psychological safety, and ultimately the science itself. In this episode, Dr L. Michelle Bennett unpacks what a genuinely collaborative mindset looks like in practice, and how something as concrete as a collaboration agreement can give your team the structure it needs to do its best work. This is the first episode in a three-part miniseries based on the book How to Succeed at Collaborative Research, co-authored by Michelle, Howard Gadlin and Dr Sawsan Khuri. All three authors join the conversation to introduce the series before Michelle takes the deep dive on collaborative mindset. Upcoming episodes cover productive conflict (Howard) and collaborating with AI (Sawsan). Michelle spent more than twenty years working with research teams at the US National Cancer Institute, where she helped launch interdisciplinarycollaborations and saw first-hand what made the difference between teams that thrived and teams that quietly fell apart. Howard spent his career as an ombudsman helping researchers resolve conflicts at Harvard, the NIH, UCLA and beyond. Sawsan teaches medical genetics at the University of Exeter and runs a consulting company, Collaborative Capacities. "When we start talking about or people start talking about power over other people, that's not collaborative. So using your power to reward people or punish people, from my perspective, is not ethical. That takes away people's ability to speak up, share their different perspectives, and ensure conscious choice." — L. Michelle Bennett Whether you're a research leader wondering whether your team is as collaborative as you think, an operations lead looking for practical tools to strengthen team dynamics, or an early-career researcher navigating the power structures of your first collaboration, this episode offers a concrete framework for building the kind of team culture that makes better science possible. Our conversation covers: The collaborative mindset vs the unilateral mindset — and why tension is the trigger that flips most people from one to the other Why collaboration sounds easy but researchers are almost never trained for it Self-awareness as the starting point for becoming a better collaborator Naive realism — the assumption that everyone sees things the way you do What a collaboration agreement actually looks like (and why one team's took nine months) The "popcorn" technique — how one team built a code word for difficult conversations How leaders model behaviour whether they intend to or not The ethical case for creating psychologically safe research environments Power dynamics — why positional power should only be used to raise all boats A 15-minute check-in format any team can start using immediately Signs of hope: how one institution transformed its tenure and promotion process to genuinely reward collaboration Find Michelle online: LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/l-michelle-bennett-50855a10 LMBennett Consulting — https://www.lmbennettconsulting.com Find Howard online: LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/howard-gadlin-850431b5 Find Sawsan online: LinkedIn —  https://www.linkedin.com/in/sawsan-khuri Collaborative Capacities — https://collaborativecapacities.com Things mentioned: How to Succeed at Collaborative Research Collaboration and Team Science: A Field Guide Blink by Malcolm Gladwell Adam Grant — "speak a

Who has been a guest on Amplifying Research

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Phillip Dawson
• Dr Sarah Morton
• John C Besley
• Dr Kenneth Strahan
• Danielle Teychenne

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Spotify

5.0 / 5

10 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 36 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

30

Social presence

94

YouTube

0

Engagement

60

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Guest appearances

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