Seasons 1-12

Formative is coming soon to a podcast player near you! Subsctibe now at NewYorkEdge.org/formative or wherever you get your podcasts. 

On the premiere episode of Formative, seventh-grader Kevin interviews Kaitlin McGaw, a musician, civil rights activist, and co-founder of the hip-hop children’s music collective Alphabet Rockers...

Seventh-grader Josh has a lot of questions for Tom Cornish, the Chief Operating Officer for BankUnited: how did dropping out of school affect his career path? As a kid, what hobbies kept him happy in ...

There’s perspective, and then there’s *perspective*. Future game developer Jake gets the 220-mile view from Dr. Charles Camarda, a retired NASA astronaut who flew the first Space Shuttle m...

Being a children’s book author may not be quite as exciting as being a Ninja Turtle, but it still lets you have as many adventures as you can imagine! And the more experiences you have, the bett...

At first blush, commercial real estate might not be the easiest or most compelling concept for an 11-year-old. But precocious sixth-grader Lili has plenty of questions for Matt Petrula, Senior Group M...

Before he joined the Jamaican bobsled team whose 1988 Winter Olympics bid inspired the Disney film “Cool Runnings,” Devon Harris was a track and field runner and an officer in the Jamaican...

It’s tough to be a physician, and tougher still to be a physician for people who make a career out of testing their bodies: athletes. So how tough is it to be the physician to nearly half a mill...

If all the world’s a stage, what would it be like to be the understudy in your own life? To watch the play unfold from the wings? Award-winning playwright Emily Mann has no idea—when she w...

Over his long career as an artist and writer, Pops Peterson has explored many forms of self-expression—but his most impactful effort has been the re-expression of another artist’s work. Hi...

Most of us will spend our whole lives in pursuit of ourselves: our passions, our identities, our voices. How is that experience changed by economic hardship, by physical displacement, by the languages...

In this season 2 premiere, engineer-turned-television-host Emily Calandrelli sits down with 6th grader Chelsea to dish about the joys of being a woman in STEM with a scientific mind and creative ...

“You may have a plan, but you have to be nimble because life will take you on a different journey.” That’s just one piece of advice Marilu Galvez, an Emmy-award-winning journalist and President & Gene...

Longtime NYC Council Member, James Vacca, tells 11-year-old Tabitha how a missing bus in middle school sparked his drive for making change in his community. Since that day, Mr. Vacca has worked on pro...

In this episode, 12-year-old Madison dives deep with Steve Gross — founder and chief playmaker of Life is Good Kids Foundation. As Steve’s father told him, “the one thing we have control over is makin...

3rd-generation Girl Scout Meridith Maskara came from a career in merchandising and promotion for Broadway theaters to become the CEO of Girl Scouts of Greater New York. In this episode, 11-year-old Ta...

14-year-old Ronesha from MS356Q asks, “How would you like to make an impact in the world?” Some of us know right away what we want to be when we grow up. And, this was the case for Dr. Lisa Moreno! In...

Chef Nini Nguyen got so much hands-on experience working in restaurants, she left culinary school after only one semester. In this episode of Formative, 13-year-old Dalani asks this Top Chef contestan...

Rico Joseph Brogna almost had a professional career in football, but ended up as a pro baseball player, coach and scout instead. His love for sports is infectious in this episode of Formative. Rico wa...

Takaira from MS 375X brings her natural interviewing chops to this episode of Formative as guest Debra OConnell lets us in on her incredible career trajectory. Now, president of Networks for Disney Me...