I believe passionately in the importance of science communication. I was the founding president of Public Communication for Researchers (PCR), a professional development program at CMU that aims to help graduate students learn and practice communicating to non-technical audiences. I've also served on the organizing committee of ComSciCon, a graduate student workshop on science communication.
In the summer of 2017, I worked as a science writer at Scientific American as part of the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship (sponsored by SIAM).
My colleagues' and my work on PCR has been featured by the National Science Foundation's Science360 News Service.
Science Communication Teaching
My role in organizing science communication training has involved teaching some workshops myself. Sessions I've taught or co-taught include:
- an overview of what's important in science communication
- several workshops for students on presenting to non-specialists, including talking to the media
- a webinar on presentations for CMU alumni
- a career development session on scientific presentation at the 2015 AAAS Annual Meeting
- a workshop on blogging for botany fellows at Phipps Conservatory and Botannical Gardens
- several workshops for University of Pittsburgh iSchool Inclusion Institute participants
- two workshops for CMU computer science faculty on being a public intellectual
Works of Science Communication
I occasionally do some freelance science writing. A few highlights:
- Ever-Elusive Neutrinos Spotted Bouncing Off Nuclei for the First Time (for Scientific American, as a Mass Media Fellow)
- The Hidden Science of Elevators (for Popular Mechanics)
- The Most Important Object in Computer Graphics History is This Teapot (for Nautilus)
- The Computer Made of Nothing but Plastic and Marbles (for Motherboard)
- On Shuttle Drivers, Chocolate, and NP-Completeness (for The Concepts Project)
For more articles like these, check out the full list of things I've written.
I've also told a story for The Story Collider.