Episode 55: Season 5 Teaser
“I’m excited to keep our focus on the practitioner and keep talking with people who are working on water issues in a very place-based and grassroots kind of way and expand our scope to multistate and binational issues”
Welcome back to the fifth season of Water Talk! Cohosts Drs. Mallika Nocco, Faith Kearns, and Sam Sandoval talk about some big changes and updates for Season 5. Released August 16, 2024.
TRANSCRIPT
Mallika Nocco
Well, hello, everybody, how are you?
Faith Kearns
Hi, Mallika, hi Sam, hey.
Sam Sandoval
The gang is back. Good seeing you again.
Mallika Nocco
Welcome to Water Talk. We wanted to provide everyone a little bit of an update on where we are in the world, where we've been, and where we're going, as well as a bit of a teaser on what's to come. So let's start with you, Sam, where are you in the world and what's going on with you?
Sam Sandoval
I am south of the border. I am in Puerto Vallarta, along the Pacific coast of Mexico. I'm still at UC Davis, still at UC, and taking a sabbatical. I've been working since I was 13 years old, many different types of jobs, and I'm 43 so after 30 years, I decided to take a pause, rethink, fall in love, once again, with water and all the things that I've been doing. And of course, taking a look at the world, the planet that we have that is so wonderful to see. So that's where I've been, and some of the things that I've been doing. Um, Faith, could you tell us where you are, what, what's going on with you?
Faith Kearns
Yes, I'm highly envious of your sabbatical is mostly where I am. Sam, I've been watching some of your pictures on Instagram from all around the world, and that's been a really fun journey to go on with you, while I am much more in the middle of having started a new job. I recently moved back to my home in northern Arizona where I was born and raised, and started a new job as the Director of Research Communications with the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative at Arizona State University. I started that in October. So it's been however many months, so that's mostly it. I'm in the throes of learning a lot about water in Arizona. Having returned here after 25 years, things have changed a little bit. And, yeah, just enjoying learning all about the way a different university works since I spent most of my career in the University of California system and all about water in the southwest. What about you, Malika? Big changes for you too.
Mallika Nocco
Yes. Big changes for me, too. And I think Sam saying I'm still at UC in California, kind of gave away the changes. So I, as of the new year, as of January 1, 2020, am now an assistant professor and extension specialist in agricultural water management at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. So in terms of what I'm studying and what I'm doing, you know, as a professor, it's very similar to what I was doing in California, at UC Davis, and with UC ANR, I just changed my institution and I changed my location. So still very much interested in agriculture and water and working in that space, but now I am back in the Midwest and Faith, as we were preparing and thinking about, you know, this episode, I was just remembering, actually to back when we talked with Sharon Megdal, and she asked us where did all of you grow up, because that's where you first get to know water. And it was just kind of occurring to me that Faith, you said Arizona, and I said Wisconsin, and we both went back to those places where we were first getting to know water, which is very interesting. Maybe Sharon knew something.
Faith Kearns
And Sam, actually, at home in Mexico now too. So we're all in our respective homelands here.
Mallika Nocco
Yeah, absolutely. So there was just, you know, a moment of change for each of us. You know, individually, I also am jealous of Sam. Actually, before we continue, for those who are not in academia, Sam, can you tell people what a sabbatical is? It's something that, I think a term that people hear, but they don't know.
Sam Sandoval
So you know, it is one of those privileges that we have in academia, and basically is to have a chance to go back, learn, relearn, or experience some things that you want to do, continue doing research. And I took it a different path, rather than just going to another university and have a similar experience in a different place, I decided to do it experiential. I decided to go and visit the glaciers. Go and visit the ocean. Go and visit the rivers, to talk to the people, to learn by experiencing. Going back to going to our homelands, I was back to Mexico City, Tenochtitlan and I was at home with my dad.
We were buying water from a water tank, and very rarely we have to do this with water in Mexico City, we have to fight for water every now and then, and it really helped in terms of the sabbatical, to bring back all of these perspectives, which I think that's what we are doing here. We've been so California centric. I'm not saying that that is bad, but really when you go out and put things in a different perspective, it really helps you out to have this reference on some issues that we have been talking about and how those same issues occur in different parts of the world, and I think that's what I'm really excited about this. And also, of course, to work, spend some time with Malika and Faith.
Mallika Nocco
That's actually a great segue to the next topic, because, you know, in terms of changing perspectives that we wanted to share, we're also changing the perspective in the scope of this podcast. So we are continuing, and have plans to continue doing Water Talk, and we hope that you will continue listening to Water Talk. But because, you know, the three of us have changed our spatial locations, we've decided to shift our spatial scope to more of a national context. And maybe I mean in terms of, like, what that's going to look like, there's some pros and cons to this. I don't know if you want to, you know, share more about the pros and cons, Faith or Sam?
Sam Sandoval
I think, when we were discussing this, one of the things that came to us is that some of the cons is that if we go national, that might be a shallow, but we decided to keep the underground perspective, the more local perspective, and to learn from it. I think some of the pros we just discussed. I think California is a good place to have as a reference, but seeing how similar issues can be addressed in a different way, or seeing those same issues from a different perspective, can help us to put our context, at least seeing it from a California point of view, but also we see it just as humans, we can learn from different parts of the world, which, that's why I'm also very excited.
Faith Kearns
I'm excited to keep our focus on the more practitioner level, the on the ground level, the Cooperative Extension focus, you know, really keep talking with people who are doing this work in a very place based and grassroots kind of way, working on water issues, but also maybe expand our scope and some of the things that we all have learned in California. I mean, I think we're all grateful to have spent a lot of time there, and of course, Sam is still going to be there. But you know, to be able to talk about things like, say, the Colorado River as a multi state, and actually binational issue, in a similar way to taking on the Great Lakes, right Malika. There are these issues that transcend our California location, and can help us to try to understand water issues from the ground up in a in a different way and across more locations.
Mallika Nocco
Absolutely, and it's almost like trying to bring some of the experiences that we're having, like I'm having a very real experience of going back home and working on water, my perspective has really changed. I think the way that I'm now thinking about water problems in the Midwest has really has changed and been very, you know, well informed by my time in California and that kind of comparative thought. Comparative governance, comparative politics, comparative scientific perspectives, is what we are hoping to do now, while still maintaining just the stories.
Things that have made me really enjoy doing our podcast is like, we talk about an issue like the Colorado River or like the Great Lakes, but we really, you know, try to zoom in on a particular story or particular set of circumstances or problem or details and talk to somebody who's working on that specific issue. And I really enjoy doing that, and I think it's going to be super fun for us to keep doing that. There was a moment when we were kind of thinking about having this like existential pause of like, what are we going to do with the podcast? And I was really sad about the idea of not continuing. So I feel really glad and excited that we were able to kind of think of a way that we could still do this, and it would still be applicable for all of us, and we could still hopefully provide a very useful resource and fun listening experience for all of you.
Sam Sandoval
And if I may, to our listeners also to give us the opportunity as we are giving ourselves our opportunity, this opportunity to learn beyond California, to be able to grow and to be able to reflect some of our perspectives, our issues, beyond the gravitational force of California. And I think that will be great. I think allows us the opportunity to do that. I think us, the three of us, will grow. And yeah, I hope that we can also share that learning and growing with our listeners, right?
Mallika Nocco
And just to clarify too, we are expanding the borders of our podcast, but California is still in it. We're going to still definitely talk about California, because I’ve got to tell you, we have a list of things in California that we wanted to talk about that we never quite got to. So not to say that we are not going to be talking about California water, because I don't think we can get away from it.
Sam Sandoval
So it really comes the hard question, when is the new season coming out?
Mallika Nocco
That is a great question, and we definitely wanted to share that with everyone. And it has taken us a minute too with our big moves and all of that good stuff. So what we're planning is a release of a new season in Fall 2024 so thank you for listening and stay tuned for Water Talk season five!