Mar 8, 2019
If you had to present your scientific work to a room full of
non-experts, what would be your approach? Have you been in that
scenario before? What strategies have you used to convey your data
and findings to the uninitiated? Here to provide some excellent
advice on this topic is Dr. Ross Beattie.
After his presentation to DisrupTECH in July 2018, Ross
was selected to participate in the Entrepreneurial Fellowship
Program. Before his selection, Ross worked to gain support for the
Emerging Leaders in Science and Society (ELISS) program among
graduate students across the University of North Carolina (UNC) at
Chapel Hill. Through a grassroots campaign, they won the right to
have the ELISS program come to UNC. Once the program was
awarded to UNC, Ross was one of three graduate students who built
support for the program within the institution, acquired funding
support from the university, and helped orchestrate the recruiting
of the applicants and application review.
Ross received his Doctor of Philosophy in Inorganic Chemistry from
UNC in 2016 and his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Kalamazoo
College in 2011. Ross currently studies as a Postdoctoral
Researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
When was the last time you had to explain your scientific work
to a non-expert? Believe it or not, many scientists and postdocs
find themselves so embedded in their peer and academic circles that
they can go considerable lengths of time without having to describe
their work to non-experts. If you had to explain your work to an
audience of non-experts right now, do you think you would
succeed?
Would your audience be able to walk away with a basic understanding
of what you covered? If you find yourself struggling to image that
scenario going well, you aren’t alone. Thankfully, Ross Beattie
took the time to explain two practical approaches that researchers
like you can use to communicate your scientific work to a
non-expert audience.
The first approach for communicating your scientific work to
non-experts is called the “grandma test.” Call up your grandma or
someone close to that demographic in your family and try to tell
them about the work you are doing in the lab and why it matters. If
they can’t understand you, it’s time to dig deeper and get to the
heart of why your research matters and how it impacts the public.
Once you can get that core message across to your grandma, you are
headed in the right direction.
The second approach that you can use to communicate your scientific
work is practice. While not as exciting as the grandma test,
practice does, in many cases, make perfect. Yes, you’ll be
uncomfortable, and you’ll probably put your foot in your mouth or
see eyes glaze over, but you’ll learn and adapt from what you
encounter. Don’t give up or throw in the towel just because you
weren’t able to connect with your first audience, learn from that
encounter and make the next one better.
In his experience, Ross has found that with each meeting he has or
the talks he delivers, it only bolsters his confidence and his
ability to communicate, especially with non-expert audiences. To
hear more of Ross’ helpful insights on the topic of science
communication and other subjects, make sure to listen to his full
conversation with Mark on this episode of When Science
Speaks.
Subscribe to When Science Speaks on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher