1.3 Getting to know your GSI: Michelle Falkenbach

Prof Scott Greer talks to HMP 615 Graduate Student Instructor, Michelle Falkenbach. What's the secret to baking great banana bread without eggs? Listen and find out!

• PH 384 Canvas site
• HMP 615 Canvas site
• Find work from the HMP Governance Lab at www.hmpgovernancelab.org and on Twitter @HMPgovlab
• Music: 'Blippy Trance' by Kevin MacLeod

Transcript

Scott Greer : 0:02

So this is Professor Scott Greer. And now I'm going to have conversation with Michelle Falkenbach, the GSI for HMP 615 this autumn. Michelle, it's good to be talking to you. Where am I talking to you from?

Michelle Falkenbach : 0:16

Yes. Hi, Scott. This is indeed Michelle and I am sitting in my home office in Vienna, Austria, not to be confused with Australia -there are no kangaroos here in Austria.

Scott Greer : 0:33

Significantly better early 20th century art. There you go. So, tell me a bit about how you happen to have a home office in Austria while you're teaching at the University of Michigan. Where did you grow up? What brought you here?

Michelle Falkenbach : 0:47

Well, that's a good question, Scott. This actually one I get quite often. Um, so I am a California native. I was born in Los Angeles and I spent the first two years of my life, actually in Austria because my mother is Austrian, and would travel back and forth between Los Angeles and a small little town in the south eastern corner of Austria. Pretty much twice a year, I went to did all my schooling up to high school in Los Angeles. And after that, I went to college in our university actually in Vienna, the capital of Austria. And from there, I did a little side stint of schooling in Geneva. And after that, I ended up working for a while in jobs unrelated to health. So I studied actually management in psychology, and worked in online marketing and management. And then I worked in film production, all of this in Europe. And after some time, I decided it would be perhaps a good idea to get a master's degree and I enrolled in a program in Innsbruck, Austria. That's where the skiing is very good. So if you want to go there... and I did my Master's in international health and social management, and that's where I met Scott. And shortly after my graduation, I came to Michigan and started the Ph. D. Program at the University of Michigan and fulfilled the requirements, the initial requirements of the PhD program, meaning the classes, mandatory classes and the exams. And then I started doing my research here in Austria.

Scott Greer : 2:53

And what's your research about?

Michelle Falkenbach : 2:55

Well, I am currently looking at The populist radical right parties, specifically those in Austria and Italy, and I'm looking into what impact they have on health and health politics, which is quite interesting, especially now in the times of Corona.

Scott Greer : 3:16

populist radical right, is that a category you find outside Austria in Italy?

Michelle Falkenbach : 3:22

It is it's something that you can even find in the United States. Not in the form of a party, but in the form of a Donald Trump. And also in Brazil. Bolsonaro belongs to a similar category or the category of populist radical right. And also the Philippines, France. I mean, pretty much every country has some shape or form of a populist radical right leader or party.

Scott Greer : 3:55

So I'm sure it's a lovely home office, but you're cooped up in Vienna. Thinking about, in some cases literal Nazis and literal fascists in the times of COVID-19. How do you keep your stress levels under control?

Michelle Falkenbach : 4:10

That's a good question. And nicely phrased. I prefer actually, to do yoga. And it's not just any yoga and I know it often sounds cliche when somebody says de stress and yoga. This is a specific YouTube channel named yoga with Adrian. And she not only provides like, really, I'm serious, the yoga spirit very good, but she's also really funny and friendly. And it's like, you know, the girl next door kind of thing. And she has a adorable dog that sometimes walks on set, and she really does yoga in a different way. And it makes it really approachable for anybody, because at the beginning, I was kind of like Yoga, stretching. And you know, that's not my thing. But then I really I tried her out and it really calms me down and it makes me laugh. And another thing that that I found helps to de-stress is watching a comedy or reading a funny book. Everybody knows probably that the Confessions of a teenage shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella and that's another it's another super cliche book that's that's just like, oh god, I don't want to read that. That's stupid funny, but it's really well written and it's hilarious. I've never laughed out loud so many times while reading and she has a great series. It's like seven different books. I highly recommend it really I do. It'll make you laugh and it's a good it's a good way to get your mind off things. So yeah, Scott, those are those are my my team things that I do.

Scott Greer : 5:57

I started laughing partly because I listened to the A Friday night comedy podcast of the BBC from Britain. And it's become a standing joke that the whole population is doing yoga with Adrian.

Michelle Falkenbach : 6:07

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Scott Greer : 6:10

So that's multiple endorsements.

Michelle Falkenbach : 6:12

She's amazing.

Scott Greer : 6:14

And apparently in addition to doing the yoga and reading the shopaholics novels, and I feel like I should add that my go to is actually formulaic mystery novels, you know, if the plot involves creativity, that that's not what I wanted for get enough creativity. You appear to bake or at least you have enigmatic ability to make banana bread without eggs.

Michelle Falkenbach : 6:34

So I think baking like me and baking is perhaps a little bit of an overstatement, but I do make the banana bread and and I'm not a big fan of handling eggs. So I figured out a way with the help of the internet to make a fairly decent loaf of banana bread using eggs. And the way I did this is because the eggs are sort of like the Finding material so you need to find something that binds without using eggs. And and that's kind of healthy, you know, that would be great. So what I used was a gob a syrup. So instead of things I use a garlic syrup, and maybe a pinch of some sort of a rice, rice milk or soy milk or soy or some sort of a milk and that works just perfectly fine. So you you use all the regular ingredients, the butter, the flour, the brown sugar, or whatever sugar type you want to use. But instead of the eggs, you put in an extra keeping up a Gabi syrup. And and they always say what always bothered me about those recipes is that they say you need to find ripe bananas. So it's not really true. You don't need to find ripe bananas, you can use any banana. The point is that you need to get it mushed the banana knees motion you can use one of those, you know hand blenders to motion Even a non ripe banana. So don't let yourself get, you know, put off by that.

Scott Greer : 8:06

So there's an air of intentionality by your banana bread. I make banana bread when I have about six bananas and they're about to go off.

Michelle Falkenbach : 8:12

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's exactly that's what most people do. But sometimes I really, you know, really want to make banana bread and don't want to wait for the bananas. So I found ways around this.

Scott Greer : 8:26

Perfect. Well, I don't know if we're really entertaining or taxing the patience of our students. But I think you can try a lot of lessons about what kind of a person you're going to be working with this semester. Excellent. might I add? So, Michelle, any parting shot before we see each other? Next week actually in instructions in seminar?

Michelle Falkenbach : 8:48

No, I hope I look forward to meeting you all and I hope we have a great semester.

Scott Greer : 8:54

All right, and I do too. And thanks Michelle for sparing us the time from museum going and all the Other things you can do in Austria because they have the virus under control

Michelle Falkenbach : 9:04

I didn't even want to go there Scott -didn't even want to go there.

Scott Greer : 9:08

Yeah, I'm a comparativist, right, and every other country I study is doing better than the United States -worth noting.

Michelle Falkenbach : 9:15

Well, you haven't been studying Brazil.

Scott Greer : 9:17

Now I have a collaborator to do that. She makes me feel better. Alright, thanks a lot, Michelle, and I'll see you next week.

Michelle Falkenbach : 9:26

Thank you and see you.

Scott Greer : 9:28

Bye.