Deana Martin: Welcome to NEB TV.
Today I am joined by my good friend and coworker, Lydia Morrison.
Lydia is a member of the Marketing Communications Team here at NEB.
She is also the Social Media Manager and the host of the NEB podcast series, Lessons From
Lab and Life.
Hey, Lydia.
Lydia Morrison: Hey Deana.
Deana Martin: And today we're talking about interesting ways to communicate with scientists.
Back in May, we interviewed some of our Passion in Science winners about some of the interesting
projects that they're working on, and we'll share those today.
But first I thought we'd talk with Lydia about the podcast series.
Lydia, can you tell us a little bit about Lessons From Lab and Life?
Lydia Morrison: I'd love to.
So the mission of the podcast is really in the podcast title, and the aim of every episode
is to draw a lesson from the stories of life science.
So those might be stories that offer a historical perspective about a technology or a technique,
or they could be about a current innovative technology and the way that that could potentially
impact our lives tomorrow.
Deana Martin: Great.
And how does this help researchers?
Lydia Morrison: So we hope that the podcast offers researchers a little perspective.
Research can be so tough, and researchers are at the bench every day.
And between those peaks of discovery and wonder, there's the slogging through every day, sort
of monotonous tasks and maybe the disappointments of some disproven hypotheses.
Lydia Morrison: So we hope that they can take a step back when they're listening to the
podcast, and maybe draw some inspiration and perspective from the podcast stories that
we share, stories about how their research can really contribute to moving life science
forward.
Deana Martin: And why do you think that science podcasts are gaining in popularity?
Lydia Morrison: That's an interesting question.
I think people are really thirsty for knowledge, and I think that podcasts offer a great way
for listeners to be able to hear from really knowledgeable experts, and really hear the
stories directly from those people.
Lydia Morrison: I think also it's wonderful to be able to listen to something while your
eyes or your hands are doing something else.
So it really lets people sort of hear these really inspiring stories while they're taking
care of some other tasks.
Maybe even while they're at the bench.
Deana Martin: So we've been hosting the podcast series for a little over a year now, correct?
Do you have any favorite episodes?
Lydia Morrison: Oh, way to put me on the spot.
I think one of my favorite episodes was the interview with Tom Knight from Ginkgo Bioworks.
Tom has a really amazing story and history.
He's certainly a brilliant individual, and he started out as a computer scientist.
I think he's a great example of how you don't have to feel boxed in by a very specific area
of study, and it's okay to cross those boundaries and integrate different fields of study.
And he's sometimes called the godfather of synthetic biology.
He's really moved to this computer science programming thinking into the field of biology.
And it's amazing what he's done with his career and what he's inspired through the iGEM program,
as well as many other programs he's been involved with.
Deana Martin: Yeah, I like that one, too.
How can our researchers find the podcast?
Lydia Morrison: So, you can find the podcast on neb.com/nebpodcast.
You can also find the podcast on iTunes.
And if you're an Android user, you can find it on Stitcher.
Deana Martin: Great.
All right, so let's hear from some of our Passion in Science winners.
Sarah McAnulty: My name's Sarah McAnulty.
I'm at the University of Connecticut.
I'm a squid biologist, and I also founded the program Skype A Scientist.
Skype A Scientist is a nonprofit that matches scientists and classrooms all around the world.
We've reached about 15,000 classrooms so far, and we have a group of 6,000 scientists that
participate.
The way the matching works is that teachers request a scientist based on the type of scientist
that they want to talk to, and we can also match them with given underrepresented minorities
in science.
So if the teacher wants to talk to a female scientists, we can match them with that, with
an LGBTQ scientist, or even underrepresented minorities ethnically in science as well.
Sarah McAnulty: Skype A Scientist is helpful for both young researchers in the scientific
community and also for young students, because in graduate school there's really no established
curriculum for most places in science communication training.
So really you only get practice by doing it.
And Skype A Scientist is kind of a low stress environment to talk about science with people
who don't do science for a living.
And so it's a really a good platform for that kind of practice.
Sarah McAnulty: And also it helps young kids because a lot of people have never met a scientist.
I think about 80% of people polled in 2018, of the American population, said they can't
name a living scientist.
And so, of course, that means they haven't met one.
And so you have this perception of what scientists look like, how they behave, and it's very,
very different from how we actually are.
And so just getting to meet us is really important for changing people's perception of science
and scientists.
And also I think that helps people sort of trust us when they get to really see who we
are as opposed to how we're seen or portrayed in movies and TV.
Sarah McAnulty: I think it's important for scientists to communicate their work, and
also their broad areas of study, in areas outside of just science conferences and peer
reviewed publication, because most of the public is never going to go to a conference.
They're never going to read the peer reviewed literature, because we use so much jargon
in these places that it would go completely over their head.
So it's important for scientists to practice communication to the public if not only to
get their work out, but also just to get better at communicating in general.
Even within the scientist community and within our field it's really important to be good
at communicating why your work is important, for getting grants, for grant readers outside
of your field.
It's professionally helpful and it's also absolutely essential for the public to understand
what science is really accomplishing and why it's important.
Sarah Fankhauser: My name is Sarah Fankhauser.
I'm an Assistant Professor of Biology at Oxford College of Emory University, and I'm also
the founder of the Journal of Emerging Investigators.
Sarah Fankhauser: The journal really came out of an idea that I had when I was in graduate
school, and I was doing a lot of outreach at the time, attending science fairs, and
going to local after school programs and doing science with the students.
And I realized that they were really missing this one critical piece of the scientific
process, and that's publishing their work and sharing it with a broad audience.
So I looked around to see are there journals out there for elementary, middle, and high
school students?
And there weren't, or at least there weren't any that really met the criteria that I had
in mind, which is it has to be free, it has to be easily accessible, and importantly it
has to have an authentic peer review process that is really engaging students in this exploration
of what the scientific process really is, and connecting these student authors with
scientists in their field.
Sarah Fankhauser: To date we actually have over 200 published papers, and we set our
goal to publish at least one paper a week.
And we have now exceeded that goal, and I think we're at about 1.4 publications a week.
Students don't actually have a holistic vision of what the scientific process is until they've
engaged in this peer review process with the Journal of Emerging Investigators.
And it's through this process that they realize that what it really means to think critically
about science, and this idea that science isn't perfect and that it requires revision,
it requires going back and forth, and rethinking about experiments and results, and how they're
communicating their work.
And I think even more importantly, students realize that science is a very collaborative
effort.
And the reviewers that are reviewing their papers, they aren't being critical, but they
are part of the process with the student and helping them to improve their science.
Sarah Fankhauser: One of the goals with JEI is that we would never reject a paper based
on the level of sophistication.
So we get papers in all sorts of fields, of all levels of sophistication.
We've had papers that have tested the absorbency of different diapers.
We've also had papers that have used CRISPR, or papers that are looking at nuclear physics.
So it really is a range of different fields as well as different levels of sophistication.
Garfield Kwan: Hi, I'm Garfield Kwan.
I am a PhD student studying fish physiology at Scripts Institution of Oceanography in
San Diego, California.
In my spare time I founded Squidtoons comic to illustrate science using various comics
and other medium.
And the key here is that I focus on creating comics that are scientifically accurate as
well as visually appealing.
Garfield Kwan: I thought of Squidtoons primarily out of frustrations.
I saw scientists being misinterpreted and unfairly attacked on social media as well
as in the press.
And that really had me thinking about how much we really need scientific literacy in
the public sphere.
I invited a couple of friends, and together we started making comics to help engage the
public in a manner that would be beneficial for everyone.
Garfield Kwan: So I believe comics is a great medium to discuss scientific research because
first and foremost the illustrations are disarming.
So when a person is approached by a piece of comic, they are more likely to read it
versus a scientific paper.
Another reason why scientific comics are a great tool is because it has relatively few
words and the visuals are usually pretty appealing, so that both kids and adults alike would enjoy
and learn something from it.
Garfield Kwan: I think it's important to offer alternative communication methods, especially
comics.
In my work comics are able to reach the inner child in all of us.
Garfield Kwan: When I first moved from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, I needed an English name
and I picked Garfield because I read Garfield comics in Chinese back then.
Turns out that Garfield comics were also one of the main reasons why I learned to be fluent
in English.
One of the reasons why I believe comic is so impactful and able to communicate or articulate
concepts that are pretty complex is because you have a combination of imagery and relatively
few words.
The words, non-native speakers might not be able to understand it in the beginning, but
combining it with the images in the panels, you might be able to get a better idea of
what's going on.
And over time, that is one key method that I use to communicate science, which could
be a different language to many people.
Garfield Kwan: Scientific communication is, in a sense, communicating an area that relatively
few people visit or even master.
And because the field is so wide and the knowledge is so deep, we can't expect everyone to be
fluent in science.
So using comics, we can make that bridge.
We can make it so that everyone is able to access the information given enough communication
investment.
Deana Martin: So Lydia, thanks so much for joining me today.
Lydia Morrison: Thanks for having me Deana.
Deana Martin: And I think it's interesting to hear about all these new methods for communication.
I think it's important for scientists to be able to use multiple forms of media, and as
well as to be able to come up with new ways to communicate to non-scientists.
So it's really great topics today.
Lydia Morrison: Definitely.
Deana Martin: So, thanks so much for joining us.
And if you have any suggestions for future episodes, please let us know.