🎙️ How a Harvard Podcast Found Its Voice

Presented by Cozy Critters

👊 Rely on Dedication, Not Motivation

Motivation is a flake. It shows up late, leaves early, and only texts you back when you’re already in a groove. Dedication, though—that’s the one who sets the alarm, puts the mic on, and presses record even when the vibes are off.

Motivation feels good, but dedication does good. One gives you the spark. The other keeps the fire burning when no one’s listening, when the edit drags, when inspiration ghosted you three episodes ago.

You don’t need to feel like podcasting to podcast. You just need to keep doing it.

🎙️ Signal Flow: Samantha Laine Perfas

Industry game changers and valiant minds share their wisdom, adversities, and paths to innovation.

Samantha Laine Perfas is a journalist and multimedia reporter in the Boston area. Originally from Minnesota, she received her undergraduate degree in English at North Dakota State University, then immediately pursued her master’s in journalism at Northeastern University in Boston. Before joining Harvard University to launch the Harvard Thinking podcast, she was a staff writer and producer for The Christian Science Monitor, where she launched a variety of shows. In her free time, she enjoys getting outside, cooking, and snuggling up with a good book.

There is pressure when you're making something under the Harvard name. But I try to remind myself: I'm not here to be the expert. I'm here to be curious on behalf of the listener. I can't possibly know everything about cancer research one week and end-of-life care the next. But I can ask thoughtful questions and help translate complex ideas into something meaningful.

Right out of journalism school, I had a couple of odd jobs and eventually ended up at The Christian Science Monitor as a social media editor and reporter. When they launched a new daily newsletter, they wanted to create a podcast version of it, and I got the opportunity to lead that effort. That led me to pursue more narrative podcasting, and I completely fell in love with the medium.

I love how intimate podcasting is. I love that listeners can hear the actual voices and emotion of people, instead of just reading their quotes in a print article. I ended up producing around seven podcasts at the Monitor.

When I was looking for a career change, I applied for a writing job at Harvard. It turned out they had been thinking about launching a podcast for a while, but didn’t have anyone who knew how to do it. So I raised my hand, and a year later, we launched Harvard Thinking.

Harvard had a few general ideas for the show, but nothing specific. The podcast had to incorporate research and reflect the university’s mission, but we didn’t know exactly how. We brainstormed a lot (a traditional interview show, a study-based format), but it was tough to find a structure that could showcase the range of topics coming from all of Harvard’s schools. Eventually, we landed on the roundtable format: one topic, multiple experts from different disciplines.

It can be a challenge, but it's led to some powerful conversations. The mix of perspectives creates this layered, unexpected dialogue that feels different from your standard academic fare.

Every show is different, and expectations vary. At Harvard, downloads aren’t the main success metric. Of course we track them, but we’re much more focused on alignment with our mission and how well the content is resonating with our community. The goal is to create high-quality, thoughtful content that genuinely benefits the listener, even if it’s a smaller audience.

Thankfully, we don’t rely on ads or monetization. The podcast is a public service, and the measure of success is impact, not revenue.

Our team values qualitative feedback: what listeners say about the show, what they liked, what they didn’t, what they learned. That kind of engagement means more to us than pure download counts.

I sit within the Harvard Gazette team, which is the university's internal newsroom. The podcast is part of the Gazette's content, so we compare podcast engagement to other Gazette stories. We track performance through our daily newsletter and see how the podcast compares to other high-performing pieces. It's usually one of the top-performing links.

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For marketing, we lean heavily on Harvard's daily email newsletter. We also use Instagram and LinkedIn, and we always send the episode to our guests. Many of them work at other institutions and help spread the word through their channels. Promotion is a whole job in itself, so we're constantly experimenting.

Each season teaches us something new about what topics resonate. We're trying to refine our editorial lens, to pick subjects that are timely, helpful, and intellectually engaging. My goal as a host is to help listeners think about the world differently or learn something new they can carry with them.

There aren't many roundtable shows quite like this one. Most roundtable podcasts have multiple hosts and one guest. Ours is one host, multiple guests. It's a unique format, and it's still evolving.

Interviewers I admire? Anna Sale from Death, Sex & Money is one. She leads with curiosity and creates space for depth. I also loved the early seasons of Ear Hustle and how they brought humanity and storytelling to life inside San Quentin. And Guy Raz, of course. He has a great way of highlighting his guests without needing to be the center of attention. That’s something I aspire to.

If you’re just starting out, my biggest tip is: Ask questions you're actually curious about. If you're not interested, your audience won't be either. And listen. Like, really listen. If you're too focused on sticking to your question list, you miss the magic.

Podcasting still feels small. We can compete, sure, but what if we collaborated more? What if we helped each other grow the pie instead of fighting over the same slice? That mindset really resonated with me, especially at conferences like Podcast Movement.

We try to collaborate when we can. A lot of our guests are affiliated with Harvard but have moved on to other institutions. Their success is our success. If a guest is now at Princeton or Stanford, we reach out to their comms team and invite them to share the episode. It’s a small thing, but it helps.

I use a Blue Yeti mic, Audio-Technica headphones, Riverside to record, and Descript to edit. I used to use Pro Tools, but Descript has been a game-changer for the way I work. I'm amazed how far editing tools have come in just a few years.

We don't do a video version of the podcast—yet. Because the show is highly edited, a visual version feels less natural. But we do post the audio to YouTube with a static thumbnail, and it's performing better than expected.

The truth is, I’ve learned so much from the people I interview. I get to talk to some of the smartest, kindest, most thoughtful people in the world, and then share their wisdom with others. That’s a privilege I don’t take lightly.

🎙️ Podcast of the Week: The Pod Lab

Looking to level up your podcast craft? The Pod Lab is a bite-sized class in audio storytelling, hosted by yours truly. Each episode tackles a single element—like pacing, interviewing, or narrative clarity—and helps you make your next episode better than your last. I collaborated with Podcast Movement back in 2021 to create 10 episodes of this show, and had forgotten about it until a friend recently found it and mentioned that it’d be great if it came back…

What do you think? If you want to hear more episodes of The Pod Lab, respond to this email and let me know!

🥾 Further Exploration

Tired of shouting into the void on social? This article from The Podcast Space offers clear, expert-backed advice on marketing your podcast more effectively across platforms. From knowing your audience to choosing the right format for your content, it’s a practical guide that’ll help your posts do more than look good—they’ll actually work.

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