Let's Talk SciComm Unimelb SciComm

This week we have the immense pleasure of speaking with the brilliant Alicia Sometimes. Alicia is a multi-award winning poet and broadcaster who is deeply passionate about both art and science. She has performed her poetry at many venues, festivals and events around the world. Alicia is director/co-writer of the art/science planetarium shows, Elemental and Particle/Wave. In 2023 she received ANAT’s Synapse Artist Residency and co-created an art installation for Science Gallery Melbourne’s exhibition, Dark Matters. Her new book is Stellar Atmospheres.

You can follow Alicia and learn more about her work here: 

https://www.aliciasometimes.com/

https://bookedout.com.au/find-a-speaker/author/alicia-sometimes/ 

https://www.instagram.com/sometimesalicia/

https://x.com/aliciasometimes 

https://sometimes2023.blog.anat.org.au/ 

https://corditebooks.org.au/products/stellar-atmospheres (Alicia’s new book)

Transcript: https://go.unimelb.edu.au/xw58

This week we had the great privilege of speaking with Dr Craig Cormick OAM. Craig is the Creative Director of ThinkOutsideThe. He is one of Australia’s leading science communicators, with over 30 years’ experience working with agencies such as CSIRO, Questacon and Federal Government Departments.

In 2014 he was awarded the Unsung Hero of Science Communication by the Australian Science Communicators, and in 2011 was a co-winner of the International Association of Public Participation’s national best practice award for the development of the Science and Technology Engagement Pathways (STEP) framework.

Craig has headed up several communications and marketing units, before moving to consultancy work. He specialised in communicating complex science to the general public – and in communicating the complex attitudes and beliefs of the public to scientists, particularly on topics of biotechnology and nanotechnology.

He has a broad background in both the theory and the practice of working with social attitudes to new technologies, and methods of community engagement, particularly on how different values influence attitudes and receptiveness to messages or behaviour change.

He has been a member of the Society of Risk Analysis and has published research papers on risk communications and risk perception, as well as giving many workshops and talks, both in Australia and overseas, on the differences between public and scientific perceptions of risk.

Craig has a particular interest in evidence-based, and client- and audience-driven, communications and marketing. He has also published more than 40 books and won many writing awards. 

You can follow Craig and learn more about his work here:

https://theconversation.com/profiles/craig-cormick-94194/articles

https://thinkoutsidethe.com.au/?page_id=27

https://www.facebook.com/craig.cormick

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-craig-cormick-oam-08352123/

https://twitter.com/craigcormick

Transcript: https://go.unimelb.edu.au/htv8

This week we had such a wonderful time speaking with Laura Bibiana Ospina-Rozo, who joined us all the way from her home in Columbia. Laura is a scientist who finds joy in tackling research questions in the field of biophotonics: where light and living matter interact. She completed her undergraduate and masters degrees at the University of Los Andes in Colombia and her PhD in 2022 investigating beetle colours at the University of Melbourne. As a postdoc at the Stuart-Fox lab at the University of Melbourne, she analyzes biological samples combining microscopy and colour-measuring techniques, and spends most of her time talking to people from different disciplines to interpret the results together. Her work has taught her the importance of communicating science in an engaging and efficient way, as well as listening to diverse perspectives around common questions. That is why she eagerly participates in science communication competitions such as the 3MT competition and the Big Science Pitch and also likes being part of the diversity and inclusion committees at the University of Melbourne. 

You can follow Laura and learn more about her work here: 

https://twitter.com/laubibianapina

https://www.instagram.com/lau.b.pina/

https://biosciences.unimelb.edu.au/about/news-and-events/hbos/humans-of-biosciences-laura-ospina-rozo (the article we referred to at the start of the episode)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhC5auSY1d4 (an intro to Laura’s Big Science Pitch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TYSU5-qGb0 The Big Science Pitch 2023

Laura also makes all her code public in https://github.com/lospinarozo

Transcript: https://go.unimelb.edu.au/cjv8

This week we had a wonderful time speaking with Dr Jen Payne about her amazing initiative STEMpals. Jen grew up in a small country town, where the closest thing to scientists she saw was her teachers. She had no idea really what a scientist was or could be. Fast forward to now, where Jen is a research scientist, minimising deadly infections due to antimicrobial resistance.

She is an award-winning science communicator who is passionate about real-world STEM in the classroom. This led to becoming the founder and CEO of a STEM charity the Curiosity Factory, which runs STEMpals. STEMpals is a pen pal program for upper primary school students where each student in the classroom is paired with their very own STEM professional to exchange handwritten letters across the year. This cross-curricular program inspires our next STEM generation one letter at a time. Jen also fosters greyhounds and has represented Australia around the world playing ultimate frisbee.

You can follow Jen and learn more about her work here: 

https://stempals.org.au/

https://au.linkedin.com/company/curiosityfactory

https://au.linkedin.com/in/jenniferaepayne

https://twitter.com/DrPayne_AMR 

https://www.australiansepsisnetwork.net.au/community-awareness/signs-symptoms-sepsis

And here is some important information about sepsis, a fatal condition we discuss on the podcast:

Sepsis comes down to TIME, as every hour treatment is delayed, the likelihood of death increases by 4-9%. 


TIME can save your life.
T = temperature - is it higher or lower than normal?
I = infection - may have signs and symptoms of an infection
M = mental decline - confused, sleepy, difficult to rouse
E = extremely ill - severe pain, discomfort, shortness of breath

Transcript: https://go.unimelb.edu.au/c9d8

What a treat this week’s episode is! We had a blast catching up with one of our brilliant former science communication students, Milly Formby.

Milly is a qualified zoologist, pilot and illustrator of the children's book, A Shorebird Flying Adventure. In 2022-23 she was the first woman to fly a microlight aircraft around Australia. The aim of the adventure was to promote protection of wetland habitats for endangered migratory shorebirds. Milly took 160 hours of flight time over 365 days covering 14,000 kilometres to complete the journey. Along the way she visited 105 primary schools reaching over 6500 students in remote, regional and urban Australia.

Milly has extensive experience in many different types of science communication and we know you’re going to love this conversation!

You can follow Milly and learn more about her work here:

https://wingthreads.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/wingthreads/

https://www.instagram.com/wingthreads/

https://www.youtube.com/@wingthreads2347

https://www.linkedin.com/in/milly-formby-a607a64b/

You can watch a documentary about Wing Threads here: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/wing-threads

And you can purchase Milly’s book A Shorebird Flying Adventure here: https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/8006/

This week we had the great pleasure of speaking with Brian Lin in Washington DC. Brian oversees EurekAlert!, a non-profit news release distribution platform operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He has more than two decades of experience as a science communicator, having interned at a national daily technology TV show in Canada before serving as a press officer for 13 years at the University of British Columbia, where he helped communicate scientific and medical research while developing and delivering media training for faculty and students. Since joining AAAS in 2014, he has more than tripled web traffic at EurekAlert! and led the development of a new platform that launched in 2021. His current focus is expanding access to EurekAlert! in low- and middle-income countries and fostering diversity, equity and inclusion in and through science communication.
You can follow Brian and learn more about his work here: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianlinworks/
https://www.twitter.com/brianlinworks
https://blog.eurekalert.org/ - The EurekAlert! Science Communication blog
https://www.eurekalert.org/resources - The Eurekalert! Resources center for journalists and Press officers
http://www.wired.com/2016/05/internet-hub-science-news-shaping-world-20-years/ - A Wired.com story about EurekAlert! at their 20th anniversary