Amplifying Research Chris Pahlow

Today’s episode is a deep dive with Elizabeth Davie, the coordinator of the University of Melbourne’s Complex Human Data Hub and an accomplished comedy performer, director, and teacher. Elizabeth shares her insights on the critical role of playfulness in research communication and engagement. She brings unique perspectives from her experience in clowning, improv, and stand-up comedy, emphasising how these art forms can transform workplace culture and enhance researchers’ communication skills.
Join us as we explore how playfulness can lead to more authentic, engaging, and memorable research presentations and why it’s essential to incorporate fun into our professional lives.If you have an important presentation, conference, or meeting coming up, this episode is a must listen! Elizabeth provides incredibly powerful and granular tips on how to be present and get in touch with your body during high stakes communications and engagements.
 
Our conversation covers:

The role of playfulness in professional settings and why it matters.


Elizabeth’s journey into clowning and how it influenced her approach to teaching and communication.


Practical tips for researchers to get comfortable with failure and use it to their advantage.


Techniques for becoming more present during presentations — including breathing, how to deal with nervous energy, and what to do right before you step on stage.


How to be playful about serious topics.


The importance of curiosity and how to foster it in your daily work.


Strategies for incorporating play and fun into research organizations to improve team dynamics and productivity.


Elizabeth’s insights on creating engaging and effective communication through humor and play.

 
Find Elizabeth Davie online:

Elizabeth’s Website


Elizabeth’s Online Stand-Up Skillshare Course

 
Find Chris Pahlow online:
• Chris Pahlow on LinkedIn
 
Credits:
Host & Producer: Chris Pahlow
Guest: Elizabeth Davie
Edited by: Laura Carolina Corrigan
Consulting Producers: Maia Tarrell, Michelle Joy
Music by: La Boucle and Blue Steel, courtesy of Epidemic Sound
 
Quotes:
“We’re human beings and it’s easy, I think sometimes to forget that in a professional context because we have these important roles and skills and jobs that we need to do. But the more we can remember that, and I think play is our essential nature, like it’s such a core part of us that it’s a way of waking that up.” - Elizabeth Davie
“I kept getting up and failing and getting up and failing. But I realized it was something I really needed because there is something about clown of being comfortable with failure. So that is part of the training because often the funniness comes from failure or acknowledging it.” - Elizabeth Davie
“Clown is a physical state, not a mental state. So it’s working through the body. And the mind follows.” - Elizabeth Davie
“Fear is excitement without breath. So if you can add the breath, not just tell yourself you’re excited instead of afraid. You actually need to add the breath because then your body’s like, Oh, I’m actually getting the air I need. I can function.” - Elizabeth Davie
“The more you can approach everything as a sort of playful experience, not that you don’t take it seriously, but that you have a level of lightness. I think it makes things so much easier from my own experience of like gripping very tightly and white knuckling my life to like seeing that there are opportunities for play everywhere and there’s opportunities for that looseness and relaxation and that it actually facilitates more serious discussion and deeper kind of thinking and wider connections if you can access that curiosity and play.” - Elizabeth Davie
“Curiosity is definitely the word of the day. I would say if there’s second billing, it’s getting in touch with your body, whether it’s right before you’re about to present, whether you’re actually on stage and want to feel gro

Today's episode is a deep dive with Professor Bianca Brijnath, the director of social gerontology at the National Aging Research Institute.
With over $24 million in research funding, much of it focused on cultural diversity, Professor Brijnath leads the Moving Pictures project, the largest website in the world for curating multilingual resources about dementia in various formats, from videos to comics.
Our conversation explores the critical importance of engaging with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) audiences in research dissemination. Bianca also shares insights on the benefits of using different mediums and the significance of co-designing with your audiences to achieve meaningful and impactful communication.
Our conversation covers —
The importance of engaging with CALD communities

The importance of engaging with CALD communities


Benefits of co-designing with communities


Responding to feedback from different cohorts


Managing iterations in project development


How institutions can engage more with multicultural communities


Choosing the right medium for your message


Starting with the community for impactful communication


The significance of inclusive science and messaging

 
Find Chris online:

Chris Pahlow on LinkedIn


Amplifying Research Website

 
Find Prof Bianca Brijnath online:

Bianca Brijnath on LinkedIn


National Aging Research Institute

 
Credits:

Hosted and produced by Chris Pahlow


Edited by Laura Carolina Corrigan


Consulting Producers Maia Tarrell and Michelle Joy

 
Quotes:

"Inclusive science is better science. It is more generalizable science, and it is more meaningful science, and it is more impactful at the end of the day." - Prof Bianca Brijnath


"Science is failure, right? It's not like we all just woke up one morning, decided to do an experiment, and voila, by the end of the day, we'd all cured cancer and dementia and got on with our lives... And so I think, if you're going to be a scientist and a researcher, you have to be resilient.” - Prof Bianca Brijnath


"We want our work to have carriage and currency across all populations. That's true impact that we're creating. And so I think it's really critical for that reason to engage with different audiences and populations on that." - Prof Bianca Brijnath


"Now, co-design is not easy. It is time-consuming and it takes a lot of effort, but you really do need to listen to people and what it is that they want. And in terms of the output that you are creating, you have to, again, think really what's going to be beneficial to the people on whose lives I'm trying to change." - Prof Bianca Brijnath


"In the real world, we have to create content sometimes that cannot be totally bespoke. I wish it could, but it can't always be totally bespoke. Sometimes we do have the luxury of time and budget where we can do that. But when we don't, we have to find common ground that's going to take enough people on that journey of helping facilitate change. So that's what we do." - Prof Bianca Brijnath


"What would you prefer? What do you actually want to see? How do you actually want the story to be told? And people will often give you that answer as well, which is really important. And sometimes they won't give you that answer, but when you reflect on it, you can kind of start to realize that there are other ways of doing things." - Prof Bianca Brijnath


"Some of the questions that we ask in research are so culturally bound, right? And they kind of privilege certain kinds of knowledge, products, systems, and ways of knowing things that are not universal. And that in fact, they can put many communities offside. So we really have to think about, you know, inclusive science alongside inclusive messaging and dissemination." - Prof Bianca Brijnath


"So it sounds like it's really important when you first get the group in to make the stakes clear and to, I guess, align them to the purpose of what you're doing. That don't worry about h

Today's episode is a deep dive with Dr Yee Lian Chew.
If you google her, you're likely to come across left-of-field descriptions like Worm Wrangler, Worm Nerd, and Worm Lady — because she's the head of the Chew Worm Lab at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute.
In addition to her day job, she's a passionate science communicator. She was part of the superstars of STEM  2022 cohort. She's appeared on ABC Science and given public lectures at great events like National Science Week. 
Today, we're going to be exploring Yee Lian's experience as an EMCR who's passionate about building communication skills, both in terms of comms and engagement efforts with the public as well as in terms of becoming a leader in research.
 
Our conversation covers — 
* Becoming "the worm lady"
* Tapping into people's curiosity
* Finding the joy in your science
* Defining and following your values
* Investing in being a better communicator
* Institutional support for science communication
* Communicating about basic research and the scientific process
* Making your science relatable
* Uniting your team
* Embracing feedback
* And a whole lot more...
 
Enjoy, and stay tuned for our next episode in two two weeks.
 
Find Dr Yee Lian Chew online:
https://www.flinders.edu.au/people/yeelian.chew
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yee-lian-chew-739440ba 
https://chewwormlab.wordpress.com 
 
Find Chris online:
https://www.amplifyingresearch.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispahlow
 
Credits:
Hosted and produced by Chris Pahlow
Edited by Laura Carolina Corrigan
Consulting Producers Maia Tarrell and Michelle Joy
 
Quotes:
 
"I think you can have a playfulness in science. It's not all serious.  There are some things you do have to take extremely seriously. But, when it comes to it, like... It is fun."
 
"And, when I was trying to explain what I was doing, the one thing that they all remembered was the worms. I worked on brain health and ageing and that sort of stuff. But you know, it was kind of like, okay, well, that's cool and important and everything, but worms? And everyone would ask... The first question would be like, how are worms related to humans? I mean, I could go down the evolutionary tree and share a lot of Latin names that are very difficult to spell. So there is that evolutionary connection, but also, that kind of made me realise that there was something that was special and unique about what I do... I deeply believe that in the work that I do there's a great added value of using the worm model. So I kind of embraced that. And as time went on, like I met my fresh science colleagues in later years and they would be like, Oh my gosh, worm lady, how are you going? So I just kind of embraced that from that moment."
 
"You're so right about engaging curiosity. I think that is really key. I think in the end, all humans are curious. And in anything where we have to talk about science, whether it's, you know, writing a scientific article or talking at a public lecture, or even writing a grant application, we're all about  tapping into what makes people curious and what makes people want to know more."
 
"She had so many things going on academically and at home. And she said something to me like. it sometimes feels like you're just lurching from one deadline to the next, and that really stuck with me. I mean, she said this to me 12 years ago. It does remind me a lot about how we operate I think as humans in this society that we live in. We are just lurching from one deadline to the next, whether it be a professional deadline, or whether, you know, my bills are due, or I need to cook dinner tonight, or I need to go grocery shopping on Saturday. And I think one thing that we really need to keep in mind is it's not just about those things. It's about finding joy in the whole process."
 
"It's not like I had to pass a test and then suddenly I was a leader... I just found myself in that position. And so I think what made it clear

Today's episode is a deep dive with Dr Mark Boulet.
Mark is the Environment Portfolio Lead for BehaviourWorks Australia, which is based in the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, and it's the largest applied behaviour change research unit in Australia.
So far on this show, we've talked a lot about communicating and engaging with different types of stakeholders and audiences. But it's one thing to get people to understand your research, to know something new, but what if you want them to do something new? What if you want to actually change their behavior?
This is exactly what Mark and I discussed in today's episode. Our conversation covers —

Changing behaviour ≠ increasing understanding


A 101 breakdown of behaviour change


Changing the behaviour of a group of people


Being more targeted


Taking advantage of industry partnerships


How institutions can help


When to call in the experts

Enjoy, and stay tuned for our next episode. Amplifying Research's release schedule is now switching to every other week, so episode 13 will be released two weeks after today's.
 
Find Dr Mark Boulet online:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-boulet-78a65846/?originalSubdomain=au
https://www.behaviourworksaustralia.org/team/mark-boulet
https://www.monash.edu/msdi/about/people/research/mark-boulet
 
Resources:
BehaviourWorks INSPIRE frameworkhttps://www.behaviourworksaustralia.org/blog/inspired-communications
 
Find Chris online:
https://www.amplifyingresearch.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispahlow
 
Credits:
Hosted and produced by Chris Pahlow
Edited by Laura Carolina Corrigan
Consulting Producers Maia Tarrell and Michelle Joy
 
Quotes:
 
"I think even a researcher just taking a little bit of time to inform themselves around how humans tick can give them some insights around how they communicate their research. And that's really at the heart of it."
 
"One of the things that we often say at Behaviour Works, particularly when we're working with research partners or when we're teaching courses is, you are not your target audience. What motivates you is more than likely not gonna motivate the people that you're engaging with..."
 
"If you want someone to take up a behaviour, make it easy for them to do so. Make it attractive so they can see the benefits to themselves. Make it social and make it timely."
 
"It could even be being a little bit more target about when people may actually be paying attention to the thing that you're interested in... This is why a lot of groups talk to people about a particular issue on days, you know, biodiversity day or forest appreciation day or all that sort of stuff. It's because you know that you've got a greater chance of talking to people about your issue when they're actually paying attention to it. "
 
"We often talk about, we need to create culture shift within an organisation or we need to create a social norm around this sort of thing. You can't create a social norm within a day, right? A social norm is a cumulative thing. And I would say that's the same thing with amplifying research, right? It's a cumulative thing. And most of your guests, you know, when you listen to their stories, it's been repeated attempts to engage, and then as a result, they've had an impact, right? And it's been a big, exciting impact, but it's very rarely just, wow, they just got up one morning and thought I'm going to be really impactful, right?"
 
"Sometimes with these research partnerships, and suspect it's also when it comes to questions around communicating and amplifying research, we need to take our research hats off sometimes... And realise that the things that motivate your colleagues in the discipline, the things that motivate the reviewers of your papers, the arguments that you have and the things that make you get very excited at conferences are probably the things that are going to bore and annoy the people that are outside of your discipline."
 
"As a general idea, you know, even bein

Today's episode is a deep dive with Amy Bugeja, Manager of Engagement and Strategy at the Contemplative Studies Centre at the University of Melbourne.
In 2019 the University awarded her the Excellence in Engagement award for the development of PsychTalks, the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences forum for ideas and discussion.
Our conversation covers —

The importance of engagement


Attracting donors


The importance of close relationships between researchers and comms/engagement staff


Using different formats/mediums for different types of people


Communicating your team's mission


Interdisciplinary communication and collaboration


The benefits of decentralising support teams

Enjoy, and stay tuned for next week's episode. We'll be releasing weekly for the first 12 episodes, and then switching to every other week to give us a bit more time to release some of the other exciting Amplifying Research projects we have in store for you.
 
Find Amy Bugeja online:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-bugeja-0151412b
 
Contemplative Studies Centre
https://psychologicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/CSC
 
PsychTalks Podcast
https://psychologicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/engage/psychtalks/podcasts
 
Find Chris online:
https://www.amplifyingresearch.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispahlow
 
Credits:
Hosted and produced by Chris Pahlow
Edited by Emily Bird and Laura Carolina Corrigan
Consulting Producers Maia Tarrell and Michelle Joy
 
Quotes:
 
"It was really essential having some type of stakeholder management, engagement role at the helm of this because we're looking outside of the ivory tower where we're really trying to embed, our work actively in the community. So it's just not possible if you don't have that dedicated resource."
 
"Just have that little thought in the back of your mind of what would you do if you were given 10 million dollars?  How could you change the world that we live in for the better?"
 
"Putting yourself out there, doing as much media as possible. If you're not comfortable in front of the camera or doing really accessible public panel sessions, then write for the conversation or pursuit or find the different channels out there that are going to reach the audience that you want to reach, knowing your audience and who you want to communicate to is the most important thing."
 
"It's really important to be able to record these things in different formats for different people. Everyone's consuming media in such different ways these days, whether it's by podcast... Radio... Some people like to sit down and watch YouTube... Others just want to read a conversation piece or have that translated into something super accessible in maybe the Herald Sun or something like that. So really making sure you can get the breadth of audience, the largest breadth of audience as possible."
 
"So I guess allowing those science communicators or event managers, whoever it is you have working with you, the space to learn how to innovate, making sure they're getting professional development, making sure they're having time to talk with their colleagues so we can learn from each other."
 
"Look for slow news cycles, if you want to be pushing something out there into the more general realm. Ensuring that you have something that's really groundbreaking that you haven't offered to anyone else. and making really, really great relationships with those journos who are happy to publish things like that."
 
"The more I talk about this, I'm like, Oh my gosh, it is so much work for any one researcher to do all this. It is a ridiculous amount of work. But it is the model that we've found that's working in this new landscape that we're operating in."
 
"It's because the Centre is smaller that I really understand what is happening in all aspects of the Centre's research and education. When I had this similar role in psychology previously, even within psychology, there's so many different disciplines within that one discipline. An

Today's episode is a deep dive with Hanie Yee, an industry leader with over 23 years of international experience working in the commercialisation for biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device industries. 
Right now, she's the COO of Alimentary, which is a digital health and diagnostic devices startup based in Auckland. And she's also involved in helping researchers get into the startup space. 
She's an investment committee chair of the MedTech and Surgical Committee for Return on Science. This is a national research commercialisation program in New Zealand, that leads the establishment of best practice to deliver new research to market from universities research institutes and private companies as well. On top of that and the many other amazing things she does She's a judge and mentor for velocity, which is the university of Auckland's innovation and entrepreneurship program...
 
Our conversation covers — 
* How commercialisation can lead to impact
* Defining your pitch and problem statement
* Talking about IP
* Finding common ground between you and your stakeholders
* The importance of authenticity
* Defining and talking about strategy
* And a whole lot more...
 
Enjoy, and stay tuned for next week's episode. We'll be releasing weekly for the first 12 episodes, and then switching to every other week to give us a bit more time to release some of the other exciting Amplifying Research projects we have in store for you.
 
Find Hanie Yee online:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/haniey
https://returnonscience.co.nz/hanie-shahpari-yee
https://www.alimetry.com/our-team
 
Find Chris online:
https://www.amplifyingresearch.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispahlow
 
Credits:
Hosted and produced by Chris Pahlow
Edited by Laura Carolina Corrigan
Consulting Producers Maia Tarrell and Michelle Joy
 
Quotes:
"So if you start with current state, then the future or ideal state, the gap, and how you address that, and the uniqueness on your value proposition, then you've got a pitch, and you can take the audience with you... If you start with, look at what I've come up with, you haven't calibrated the room. You have no idea what people know or don't know or assume. Whereas if you set the scene by creating a calibration of, this is where we are today,  this is where everyone believes we should be, therefore here is the problem, and I'm going to articulate it well to you..."
 
"The chances are that if they're not doing it, they may have a really good reason. So you have to be sensitive towards that, right? So as a big company, if they don't have a product in X, but they have covered everything behind and everything after, then there may be a very good reason for that. A lot of the time it comes back to IP patents or whatever that may be that you are not aware of. But having that conversation and acknowledging and showing them that you have gone deep and looked at their portfolio with interest, with curiosity, actually signals that you care."
 
"Most companies, don't like to be threatened, but love people's interest in what they're doing. So it, it has to be come, it has to come across with an element of curiosity and interest like a problem solving, mindset, rather than, ha, gotcha."
 
"If you don't know about IP, you just have a really good solution or a service or an offering... Do speak to someone who understands it and you trust before going and speaking to that industry partner. Be it through a tech transfer office, be it through an IP firm, legal firm. Get some advice before you go and speak to them. Because that would be the first question that I would ask as someone in the industry from someone who comes and says, Hey, I've got something to talk to you. The first question I'll ask is, where is your IP at?"
 
"It really depends on who you're speaking with, and where their interests lay. What's that Venn diagram look like, right?  So you want to achieve these things. They want to achieve these other things. What's that o