Dasia Harris Walked Into the Brain Smarts Challenge. It Did Not Go Quietly.
If you need a break from studying, from rotations, from pretending you have it all together, then Brain Smarts is calling your name. Hosted by Clay and Caitlin Palmer, it is the show that somehow keeps getting approved: real science, genuinely terrible jokes, questionable impersonations, and just enough educational content to justify calling it a podcast.
This episode's guest made it even better.
Meet Dasia Harris
Dasia Harris is a second-year veterinary student at NC State, a military reservist, an exotic animal enthusiast, and one of the most compelling voices for the next generation of veterinary professionals showing up on social media right now. Her Instagram and TikTok presence has built a community of future veterinarians who needed to see someone like her doing this work and doing it unapologetically.
She does not wait for permission. She does not fit neatly into boxes. And she is not interested in the version of veterinary success that requires you to sand down everything interesting about yourself to get there.
That is exactly the kind of person Brain Smarts was built for.
The Challenge
Every episode of Brain Smarts ends the same way: a challenge. Quick thinking, science knowledge, and the ability to hold your own while Clay and Caitlin are actively rooting for chaos. The competition gets loud. The banter gets louder.
Does Dasia win? You are going to have to listen to find out. What we can tell you is that nobody walks out of the Brain Smarts Challenge unchanged — and Dasia Harris is not the kind of person who shows up to lose.
What This Episode Is Really About
Between the laughs, this one goes somewhere real. Dasia talks about navigating veterinary school while holding multiple identities, staying motivated inside a profession that can grind people down, and why the one-size-fits-all narrative in vet med is not just limiting — it is wrong. She talks about representation not as a talking point but as something she lives, every single day, in every room she walks into.
It is the kind of conversation that reminds you why you chose this profession in the first place. And it is a good reminder that you do not have to lose yourself to succeed in it.
This episode of Brain Smarts is sponsored by Zoetis, maker of Solensia.
Listen Now
Catch Dasia Harris on Brain Smarts with Clay and Caitlin Palmer wherever you stream Vet Candy podcasts. Fair warning: you will learn something, you will laugh, and you will leave with a name worth remembering.
