# How Brooks Wheelan went from biomedical engineer to SNL Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/talk-of-iowa-414017/how-brooks-wheelan-went-from-biomedical-engineer-to-snl Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/talk-of-iowa-414017/how-brooks-wheelan-went-from-biomedical-engineer-to-snl.md Podcast: [Talk of Iowa](https://stenobird.com/podcast/talk-of-iowa-414017) Published: 2026-04-16T12:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.iowapublicradio.org/podcast/talk-of-iowa/2026-04-16/how-brooks-wheelan-went-from-biomedical-engineer-to-snl Audio file: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/4c9587f2-e550-4709-b293-ad0300ce922d/3385bb4b-899e-431e-86a1-ad6b00d98a32/11772ad5-2e41-458a-b57c-b42d0134b94a/audio.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/talk-of-iowa-414017/episodes/how-brooks-wheelan-went-from-biomedical-engineer-to-snl Duration seconds: 2881 ## Resource Iowa native Brooks Wheelan realized a passion for comedy while attending the University of Iowa, but continued his studies, seeing biomedical engineering as a way to Los Angeles or New York. His plan worked, and he went on to be a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and the 'New York Times' called his comedy special 'Alive in Alaska' one of the best of 2024. Wheelan joins Charity Nebbe during a stop in Iowa City to talk about his career and what's next. Then, Lynetter Pohlman has led Iowa State University Museums for 46 years and has been there since its inception over 55 years ago. Ahead of her retirement, Pohlman joins the show to take a look back. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/talk-of-iowa-414017/episodes/how-brooks-wheelan-went-from-biomedical-engineer-to-snl/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/talk-of-iowa-414017/how-brooks-wheelan-went-from-biomedical-engineer-to-snl.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.