The Contemplative Mammoth
science communication
An unruly calculus: doing, funding, and communicating science
I recently returned from ScienceOnline, a meeting for journalists, scientists, artists, teachers, and others who discuss (and do!) science on the internet. This was my second time at the conference and, like last year, I came home with a mind full of ideas about effective outreach, open science, and teaching innovations. I tweeted something to … Continue reading
ScienceOnline Interviews: Jessica Morrison, Science Journalist and Crystallographer
Last year, I crowd-funded my attendance to ScienceOnline2012, an un-conference for people communicating about– and doing– science on the internet. In exchange, I offered to interview one attendee for every $100 I raised. In the lead-up to ScienceOnline2013, I’ll be sharing those interviews. Based on feedback from Twitter, I decided to interview student attendees in the sciences. My third … Continue reading
ScienceOnline Interviews: Anthony Salvagno, open science biophysicist
Last year, I crowd-funded my attendance to ScienceOnline2012, an un-conference for people communicating about– and doing– science on the internet. In exchange, I offered to interview one attendee for every $100 I raised. In the lead-up to ScienceOnline2013, I’ll be sharing those interviews. Based on feedback from Twitter, I decided to interview student attendees in the sciences. My second … Continue reading
Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Honoring Dr. Evelyn Chrystalla Pielou
It’s Ada Lovelace Day, which is devoted to “sharing stories of women — whether engineers, scientists, technologists or mathematicians — who have inspired you to become who you are today.” I would definitely be remiss if I didn’t mention Dr. Evelyn Chrystalla Pielou, more often known as “E. C. Pielou,” one of the founders of … Continue reading
My Academic Independence Day
This is a quick update to say: I defend my dissertation tomorrow! I have a lot of thoughts about this, most of which I am unable to articulate because I am literally eating, breathing, and dreaming my dissertation, which means I’m finding it difficult to articulate anything that isn’t about late-glacial novel ecosystems, bison, dung … Continue reading
Building a Shadow CV
I often look at the CV’s of researchers whose careers I admire to get a sense of their trajectory, and to build a rough road map of goals and objectives. How many papers do I want to put out in order to be as competitive as possible for a particular kind of job? How much … Continue reading
Social Darwinism, the survival of the fittest, and the intersection of science and politics: A BlogHer guest post
The wonderful folks at BlogHer asked me to write a guest post on Social Darwinism, after President Obama’s speech last week where he evoked the phrase to critique the GOP budget. “Given the long history of racist stereotypes about poverty, and the fact that the public has a lot of misconceptions about evolution, the continued use — … Continue reading
How can scientists actively engage with the media?
I’ve been following a number of scientist-journalist discussions in the last year in various places, including ScienceOnline2012, in the blogosphere, and on Twitter. Increasingly, I’ve come to suspect that there is often a profound lack of understanding of the respective professional cultures of scientists and journalists, which has important relevance to the ways in which this discussion … Continue reading
Can you help me get to ScienceOnline2012?
ScienceOnline2012 is the sixth annual meeting on science and the web, taking place in Raleigh, NC from January 19-21. It’s structured in an “un-conference” format of discussions and workshops, attended by science writers, editors, scientists, artists, and others who participate in, communicate, and discuss science on the internet. This will be my first year attending … Continue reading
How to argue with a scientist: A guide
I notice it all the time– on Facebook, in the comments of a science blog, over family gatherings, or listening to a radio talk show. Someone, maybe you, is patiently trying to explain how vaccines cause autism, perhaps, or why so-called “anthropogenic” global warming is really just due to sunspots or some other natural cycle. … Continue reading
