Megan Kamerick

4/20 12p: This week in women's headline news, the first female astronaut candidate in the U.S. died. We have a remembrance.Also in this week's news: Protests erupt in Bangladesh over the death of a woman murdered after she refused to drop sexual harassment charges against her Islamic school prinicpal; police in Northern Ireland arrest two teens in the death of journalist Lyra McKee; the trial of female activists in Saudi Arabia postponed; Ivanka Trump visits Ivory Coast as part of USAID $2M pledge to help women in cocoa industry; women will be included in Taliban delegation during peace talks for the first time; Congressional hearing set for April 30 on Equal Rights Amendment, the first such hearing in in 36 years; New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver to pursue Senate seat; lawsuit against New Mexico Corrections says officers sexually abuse inmate.

University Showcase 4/19 8a: How can studying design help children with math and geometry? How does the design of a classroom help or hinder academic achievement? On this episode, we talk with Anne Taylor. She has spent much of her career creating learning environments that foster innovation and intrigue at schools, in the United States and internationally.

Getting healthcare in rural areas can be really difficult.  There aren’t enough doctors and smaller communities often struggle with poverty and transportation issues. The documentary “The Providers” explores the challenges – and the rewards – of serving these patients by focusing on three healthcare workers in northern New Mexico. It premiers April 8 at 9 p.m. on New Mexico PBS Channel 5 and airs again April 13 at 10 p.m

3:30 12p: This week in women's headline news: Legendary filmmaker Agnes Varda dies. Also in the news, three women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia temporarily released; Mexico has its #MeToo moment; new exhibit at the National Portait Gallery highlights suffragist movement; NASA cancels plans for all-female space walk; Maryland National Guard led completely by women; North Dakota considers nullifying its support of Equal Rights Amendment; Gov Michelle Lujan Grisham signs legislation that changes how those younger than 18 are treated when arrested for prostitution.

Women's Focus, 03/16 Noon: British actress and comedian Nina Conti comes to Albuquerque this week for two shows with the Tricklock Revolutions International Theatre Festival. She has won a British Comedy Award, stormed Live at the Apollo, Russell Howard’s Good News, Sunday Night at the Palladium, and made a BAFTA nominated film. She and her most well-known puppet, Monkey, were also in the HBO series “Family Tree.”

  University Showcase, 3/15, 8a: As the turmoil continues in Venezuela, we talk with several professors at the University of New Mexico to gain some context and understanding of the crisis.

University Showcase: For years New Mexico has languished at or near the bottom nationally for child well-being and one factor behind that ranking is our high rates of child abuse. Many of those cases come through the Child Abuse Response Team -- or CART -- at the University of New Mexico Hospital.

Women's Focus 2/9 Noon: Donatella Moltisanti was studying opera 30 years ago and she found that debilitating pain she was experiencing would disappear as she sang. She began exploring how music can physically affect people and has created a technique she calls Moltisanti Soul Singing. She will be hosting a number of workshops in New Mexico from Feb. 19 to the 24th.

Moltisanti Soul Singing events will take place on:

University Showcase 1/18 8a:   On this episode we speak with Anthony Anella and Mark Childs about their book “Imagine a City That Remembers: The Albuquerque Rephotography Project," published by University of New Mexico Press.

  Women’s Focus 12/29 12p: On this episode we’ll explore how Crossroads For Women helps women successfully return to the community after incarceration as part of a project of the Solutions Journalism Network. It’s a nonprofit organization that works to rebalance the news so what we read, hear, and listen to each day are not only problems, but also solutions.

  University Showcase, 12/21 8a: Climate change is not theoretical in New Mexico. It's here and already having serious impacts on our communities. Professor David Gutzler says we have no choice but to adapt and incorporate this reality into our policies statewide. 

Sat. 12/15 12p: In this week's women's headline news, the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, Nadia Murad and Dr. Denis Mukwege, use their award speeches to call for global action to end mass rape. Also in this week's news: CBS gives $20 million to groups fighting workplace sexual harassment; Mexico City elects its first woman mayor; a report condemns an Australian prison for letting a woman give birth alone in a cell and the U.S. renews efforts to ban shackling of inmates giving birth in hospitals; a study finds films with female leads bring in more to the box office than those with male leads; the phenomenon of "he-peating" can hurt women's professional advancement; and New Mexico's state crime lab has cleared its backlog of untested rape kits.

University Showcase 11/16 8a: More than 14,000 New Mexicans served in World War I, less than a decade after the state finally gained statehood. Thousands of others contributed to the effort on the homefront. Many citizens were eager to prove their patriotism after years of skepticism about making New Mexico part of the U.S.

In one year on average more than 116,000 people in America are shot by guns. These include murders, assaults, suicides and suicide attempts, unintentional shootings and police interventions. That grim statistic provides the backdrop for a new exhibit at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, "Gun Violence: A Brief Cultural History." It’s at the Maxwell Museum through November 10th.

  Friday 9/21: This episode is all about the brain. Dr. Elaine Bearer is a neuropathologist at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Her work has includes studying biomarkers of trauma and abuse in children and whether the cause of Alzheimer's disease may come from infections. Dr. Bearer is also a composer and it was music that spurred her interest in studying the brain.

  Friday 8/17: Immigrant. Refugee. Asylum. These are words we’ve been hearing a lot this year. But what are the laws around refugees in the United States and internationally and is the U.S. following its legal obligations? On this episode of University Showcase, we talk with Professor Jennifer Moore. She's an expert on refugee law and teaches it at UNM.

Friday 7/20 8a: On University Showcase, the Diné Red Water Pond Road Community on the Navajo Nation has grappled for years with the contamination from tailings left from uranium mines. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to relocate the community, but members do not want to leave their land and see a solution in moving to the top of a nearby mesa.

Sat. 06/30, 12p:  The United States is the only developed country in the world without some form of guaranteed paid family leave. This forces many Americans to choose between taking time off to care for a sick family member or continue to work in order to keep their job and health benefits.

June 16, 2018: New data shows suicide rate rising faster among women than men; Trailblazing basketball coach and player Anne Donovan dies; Tanzania removes tax from menstrual products; Haiti bans Oxfam for sexual misconduct; Domestic workers protest in Hong Kong; Federal officials deny they took breastfeeding infant away from woman at U.S. Mexico border; Gender wealth gap costs world $160 trillion; Lawsuit alleges lewd conduct by New Mexico State Police chief.

Friday 6/15 8a: The Prevention Research Center at the University of New Mexico does not show up in rural communities to proscribe solutions. Rather it works hand in hand with the people of those communities to create projects that address needs local needs and priorities. This often means adapting established reseaerch to the unique needs of rural New Mexico.

May 26, 2018: Women make history in primary races; Harvey Weinstein arrested; Morgan Freeman accused of sexual misconduct; Irish voters support repeal of restrictive abortion law; Women arrested in Saudi Arabia weeks before driving ban to be lifted; Brandi Chastain to get new plaque after first roundly criticized; USC president steps down amid scandal over school gynecologist; Former first lady of Mexico drops out of presidential race; Women in Muslim majority countries moving into STEM and entrepreneurship; CD1 race in New Mexico is close.

Veteran journalist Lydia Polgreen left the New York Times in late 2016 to become the editor-in-chief of HuffPost. Polgreen is a graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis and was in Santa Fe in May to give the commencement address at the school's campus there. She talks about growing up in Ghana and Kenya, her career at the Times, including her coverage in Africa and her vision for HuffPost as a place for stories of people who feel left out of power.  

  Friday 5/18 8a: During the spring semester, professors with the School of Architecture taught two classes where students did projects around Albuquerque, and in collaboration with community members.

  The story of the Rosenbergs still stirs controversy, nearly 70 years after they were put to death for conspiracy to commit espionage. The couple was charged with conspiring to provide technical information about building an atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, worked on the Manhattan Project in New Mexico and when he was arrested told officials Ethel’s husband, Julius, had recruited him to steal classified information.

  Friday 4/20 8a: The demand for people with project management skills -- which is basically the discipline of managing a specific project from beginning to end -- has grown around New Mexico and the country. One study found that in the next decade employers will need more than 80 million people working in project management-oriented roles.

Immigration and border security have dominated the headlines this week in New Mexico and across the nation. Latino USA’s Maria Hinojosa has been covering these issues for many years and she says this is one of the most horrible, beautiful times to be a journalist. The founder of The Futuro Media Group spoke with KUNM's Megan Kamerick. 

March 31, 2018: Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai makes emotional return to Pakistan five years after Taliban tried to kill her; Trump Administration reverses policies preventing immigration detention of pregnant women; UN holds Commission on Status of Women meeting; Judge rules massive suit against Goldman Sachs can proceed; Google loses argument on pay for women engineers; Uber settles discrimination claims; More states move to eliminate taxes on menstrual products; Boko Haram releases girls; High grades could hurt female college grads on job market; Putin's spokesman equates Weinstein accu

March 17, 2018: Longtime lawmaker Rep.

  3/16 Over the last year numerous protests have erupted around Confederate memorials throughout the South. Here in New Mexico we have also grappled with a history of colonialism and racism. That has played out at the annual Entrada during Santa Fe’s Fiestas, and at the University of New Mexico, where there have also been protests and calls for change around the university’s official seal and murals created in 1939 in the Zimmerman Library. The Three Peoples murals have been criticized for decades for what people have called racist and inaccurate depictions.