Missouri Cures Education Foundation is proud to present: WISER CONVERSATIONS, hosted by Executive Director, Dena Ladd. The first podcast of its kind, WISER CONVERSATIONS promotes and explores the work of women in science, entrepreneurship, and research.

This podcast, which broadcasts twice-monthly on Wednesday mornings, brings together experts from Missouri and around the country to discuss cutting-edge medical and scientific research, innovation, and technology. In each episode, Dena will speak to women succeeding in their field about their work to move therapies and cures forward, improve the health of our communities, and to stimulate the economy.

We hope you will enjoy this exciting series.

Listen here.

Episode Guide

Listen to our first episode, WISER Conversations with Maxine Clark, Founder of Build a Bear Workshop, Chair of the Clark Fox Family Foundation, and Chief Inspirator of The Delmar Divine.  Maxine will discuss building one of the world’s most successful companies, using her success to help others to become entrepreneurs, and the importance of giving back to the community.

Episode 2 of WISER Conversations features Dr. Carolyn Henry, Dean at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine.
Listen now to hear Dr. Henry discuss her work finding a cure for cancer in dogs and how that might hold the key to finding therapies for cancer in humans. She also answers questions about COVID-19 in pets.

Episode 3 features Dr. Jennifer Silva, Associate Professor of Pediatric Cardiology at Washington University School of Medicine, and co-founder of Senti-AR, a mixed reality platform that displays a 3-D hologram of a patients heart. Listen now. https://anchor.fm/wiserwomen

Episode 4 of WISER Conversations features Dr. Susan Abdel-Rahman, Chair in Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology at Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, Missouri. She’s a researcher, entrepreneur, teacher, and national thought leader, and she doesn’t let anything stand in the way of solving problems or helping kids. Listen now!

Episode 4 features Joy Milner and Gabrielle Cole, Co-Founders of the Fit and Food Connection. Joy and Gabi followed their passion for health and turned it into an organization that provides resources, nutrition, and exercise to families in need.

Listen now!

Kelly Ranallo, Founder of Rare KC uses her experience as an entrepreneur and a health care professional to advocate for the rare disease community. She’s tough, smart, tenacious, and passionate. Listen now! 

Natalie Self is the Executive Director of STEMSTL. Natalie has been a champion for women entrepreneurs. She’s passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion education. Listen now! 

Randi Foraker, PhD, MA, FAHA, is focused on applying epidemiology and informatics techniques to solve problems in the population health domain. She is the Director of the Center for Population Health Informatics (CPHI) at the Institute for Informatics (I2) and an Associate Professor of General Medical Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. As director of the CPHI, she aims to improve the health of the community through data and support data access, analytics, and dissemination efforts. Her own work specializes in the design of population-based studies and the integration of electronic health record data with socioeconomic indicators, and her research portfolio has been supported by a combination of governmental and industry grants and contracts. Her most recent research has focused on the application of clinical decision support to complement risk scoring in primary care, cardiology, and oncology.

Twice monthly WISER Conversations features Women leading the way in Science, Entrepreneurship, and Research. Dena Ladd, Executive Director of the Missouri Cures Education Foundation interviews inspirational women from Missouri, the Midwest, and around the world.

Listen now! 

Stacy Taubman, Founder and CEO of RISE Collaborative Workspace, talks with Dena about following her passion to lift women and girls up, surrounding herself with people who make a positive impact, and successfully networking though she’s an introvert.
Episode 9 of WISER Conversations is one you won’t want to miss. Listen now! 
Mitch Meyers, Co-Owner and Partner at The BeLeaf Company, talks with Dena about how after retiring from her successful career as Co-Founder and President of an award-winning marketing and communications agency she went on to find her true passion helping patients.
Episode 10 of WISER Conversations is one you won’t want to miss!