Jen Dodd

[This is a series of interviews I did in 2008 on my previous blog.]

I’ve decided to start publishing a series of short interviews with people doing interesting work in science outreach, with a new interview published each Monday. My goal is to build up a vision of the range of career paths people follow to end up in science outreach, and the different sorts of work that they do once they’re there.

Our first interview is with Eva Amsen, a PhD candidate in Biochemistry and science writer. Enjoy!

How did you get interested in science?

I don’t really know. I recall reading about genetics in a kids’ magazine when I was seven or eight, but I didn’t know it was “science” at the time. I could see that it was something educational, but didn’tistinguish between learning about science or learning about history. When I was a teenager I became concerned about the environment, and I enjoyed school science projects about air or water pollution. When I had to apply for university, I applied to a Chemistry program with the intention of studying Environmental Sciences and using science to save the planet, but during my first year I realized that Environmental Chemistry was mostly Analytical Chemistry and I didn’t really like that field, so I ended up in Biochemistry instead. I’ve always had any interests beside science, so it’s hard to figure out what led me to science.

What makes doing science outreach seem worthwhile to you?

There are different kinds of science outreach: One type of outreach is aimed at elementary and high school students to get them interested in a career in science. Another type is aimed at people who don’t work in science and never will work in science but who are curious about the world and like hearing about science. That is my favourite kind of outreach, because to a certain extent everybody *is* interested in science. People will say that they don’t like science, but what they don’t like is the memory of sitting in a science classroom in high school. Once you point out that there is science involved in many of he things they read about in the news every day – alternative fuels, stem cell therapy, forensics – it suddenly becomes interesting and you have an eager audience wanting to learn more about DNA fingerprinting or energy conversion.

What comes to mind as one of the more interesting things happening in the outreach world today?

One of the things I find really interesting is the concept of Cafe Scientifique. It brings back a time when science was discussed more publicly than we’re used to now. Rather than only hearing about science through the media, people can attend a Cafe Scientifique meeting and talk directly with scientists. It’s interesting for the participating scientists as well: They get to meet people who are interested in their work but don’t know enough about it to discuss it at an academic level. From my own experience of doing outreach for kids I always felt re-energized and more excited about my own work after having talked to a group of curious nine-year-olds. They have such an admiration for science, and you just tend to take it for
granted if you’re in the lab all day. It must be the same for the scientists who get to talk on a Cafe Scientifique panel.

What are you currently up to?

I’m trying to finish my thesis, so I can leave the lab and focus on science writing for a while. I’m finding it hard to combine thesis writing with other writing, so my blog is not updated as often right now, but I have some blog ideas for when the thesis is done. The only non-blog, non-thesis writing I’ve recently done is for CRAM science. It’s a Canadian website meant for teenagers, explaining the science behind everyday concepts. My most recent piece for CRAM was about fake tanners and I’m currently writing an article for them, together with my sister, about dehydration. I’ll also be at the Science in the 21st Century conference, where I’m moderating a panel discussion about science and the public on September 8.

[This is an interview series I did in 2008 on my previous blog.]

Our second in this series of interviews with people who do science outreach, this time with Joel Gilmore, science communicator at the University of Queensland.

How did you get interested in science?

I’ve always been fascinated by how things work and uncovering the underlying principles – whether it be physics or lockpicking! What really set me on my course to physics, however, was picking up a popular science book for $2 at the Brisbane “Ekka” (a cross between a fair and a produce/cattle display!) called “The Edge of Science” about cosmology and particle physics. It was a great read and actually went into quite a bit of detail, and I was totally hooked. At the age of 12, I was proudly telling everyone who asked I wanted to be an astrophysicist!

What makes doing outreach seem worthwhile to you?

Well, first and foremost, I love it – I enjoy the challenge of explaining a complex topic to people who may not have a scientific background. And I think most audiences can handle far more science than many communicators give them credit for. Ultimately, though, I think it’s vital that everyone has some basic understanding of modern science and the new technologies that are appearing. Whether they’re potential scientists who will one work on these projects, or whether they’re politicians who will one day (hopefully) fund them, it’s a great feeling when audiences nod with understanding at the end of a talk. Plus, if I can put even one reiki practitioner or magnetic healing “therapist” out of business, I’ll count my life as well spent.

What comes to mind as one of the more interesting things happening in the outreach world today?

Tricky! I think one of the best things are the many blogs run by scientists around the world. Not only are they great sources of first hand information for increasingly tech-savvy audiences, by they also give insight into what has traditionally been quite a mysterious world: academia! Combined with tech sites like Slashdot.org and online podcasts like Australia’s The Science Show, the internet is helping communicators to reach more people more easily.

What are you currently up to?

I’m currently employed by the University of Queensland as a science communicator. A big chunk of my day is running the Physics Demo Troupe which travels out to schools around
Australia doing science shows, talks and workshops. I just got back from a month of travel from the outback mining town of Mt Isa to the beautiful Thursday Island in the Torres Straits, and it was immensely encouraging to see so many enthusiastic physics students.

I also help coordinate a public lecture series called BrisScience – founded by none other than Jen Dodd when she was at UQ! I also write physics parodies and run a blog when I get time!

[This was an interview series I did in 2008 on my previous blog.]

After a few weeks of hiatus on the blogging, we’re back with the third in the series of science outreach interviews. This week it’s a pleasure to hear from Chad Orzel, a blogger, author, and physicist at Union College in Schenectady, NY.

(P.S.: If you enjoy the interview, you might like to go help him in his blog’s DonorsChoose campaign for raising money for high schools.)

How did you get into science?

Depends on what you mean by “get into science.”

I quite literally can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in science. My grandmother tells a story about taking me to work with her once when I was about four, and having one of her co-workers ask what I wanted to be when I grew up. I replied “I’m going to be a paleontologist” (or, in one version, a “vertebrate paleontologist,” just to be extra clear).

Exactly which science I was interested in changed from time to time growing up, but I was always interested in some sort of science. I latched onto physics in my junior year of high school, when I took physics (out of the usual order, for reasons that escape me), and saw all the cool toys that my teacher got to play with. I went to college being pretty sure I was going to major in physics, and stuck with it.

I really enjoyed being a physics major at a small liberal arts college, especially because it gave me the opportunity to get involved in research very early on, starting the summer after my first year. It seemed to me that my professors had a pretty sweet job, so I went to graduate school with the goal of getting a Ph.D. and ending up teaching physics at a small liberal arts college, and I was lucky enough to manage that.

I can’t really say I’ve fulfilled my childhood dream (I’m not, after all, a vertebrate paleontologist), save in the very general sense of becoming a professional scientist, but I have ended up pretty much exactly where I wanted to be when I graduated college, which is pretty cool.

You have written a book about quantum mechanics and you have been blogging about physics for many years. What motivates you to put so much effort into these projects?

In the case of the book, I’ve been paid a substantial sum of money. That never hurts…

The book came from the blog, though, and I was writing about physics on the Internet well before people started paying me. I started the blog because I was a big reader of blogs already in 2001, and I like to hear myself talk. I started talking about physics on the blog because it’s an area where I have actual knowledge to share, as opposed to just running my mouth about things I don’t really understand (which is not to say I don’t do that, too, but I like to have a little credibility…).

I keep doing it because when it goes well, it’s a real kick. It’s the same thing as teaching a class, in some ways– when a lecture goes really well, and I can see a difficult idea really “click” with a class, that’s a huge kick. It makes the occasional drudgery involved in the job seem insignificant.

The same sort of thing happens with the blog. When I find some novel way of explaining a difficult idea, and manage to do a good job of getting across the excitement and wonder of physics research, I find that really exhilarating. And knowing that hundreds or thousands of people read that explanation makes it even better.

The origin of the book project was completely surreal, but once I was convinced that it was a worthwhile idea, it was actually a lot of fun to write. In the first pass, at least– editing drafts down is always a world of pain. After a little fumbling around, though, the dog voice turned out to flow really easily, and I found it really helpful to the straight physics explanations to be able to use the dog to interrupt things when the going started to get a bit rough. It injects a little much-needed levity into what can otherwise be a pretty ponderous subject.

The book has ended up being both more and less work than I thought it would be. Polishing the text has been really annoying – it’s amazing how much I overuse the word “really” – but the actual writing went faster than I expected in a lot of places.

Do you do other outreach work, or have some ideas for the future that you’d like to share with us?

I floated the idea of an online “film festival” a while back, and discussions over how to make that happen have gotten bogged down a couple of times, but I still like the idea. I’ve been really impressed by the creativity and ingenuity people display on YouTube, and I think it would be really great if we could harness that to do something positive for science. I’m going to keep re-visiting that idea, and see what we can pull together.

I’m also signing up for things like the “Adopt-a-Physicist” program, and trying to do more to help local outreach efforts (the college chapter of the Society of Physics students has done demonstration days at local high schools, for example). I’m also trying to push the sort of outreach evangelism I was preaching in my talk at the Science21 meeting into new venues, with mixed success.

What do you think is one of the most interesting new things happening in science outreach?

I think the broadening of communications options has really done a lot to expand the audience – and the potential audience – for science content. When I was a kid, the only place you could really find science programming was on PBS, maybe two or three nights a week. Now, I’ve got a half-dozen channels on my cable tv that carry science (or at least science-ish) programs every night. ScienceBlogs has an audience of millions, and there’s a respectable number of other sites bringing science to the web.

I’m also really encouraged by things like the Science Cafe phenomenon and the success of the World Science Festival in New York this past May. I think that, contrary to a lot of the siege mentality you hear from science bloggers, it’s actually a great time to be a scientist, and that a larger fraction of the public than we realize is willing and eager to hear about science, if we make the effort to reach out to them.