“As scientists, it’s our job to communicate to the public the importance and benefits of biomedical research in plain language. The Alan Alda Center is nationally known for helping us do that. Their programs work, if we work with them. Let’s get started.” — Hudson Freeze, PhD, director of the Human Genetics Program, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (La Jolla, California).
Register for the workshop at sbpdiscovery.org/alda
If you are a scientist, you know how hard it is to explain your research to non-scientists. It’s not easy. Maybe you’ve been at a dinner party and the person to your left is a physician, telling a story about a very sick patient who responded to a new drug—everybody gets that. But what if you’re the person that worked to discover that new drug? Will people understand that you used a high through-put screen to find inhibitors of your target? Unlikely if you can’t explain it simply.
Now there is help for scientists. On September 21st, SBP will host a workshop offered by the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, the Harvard of training the next generation of scientists and health professions how to communicate to the rest of the world. The program is designed to get scientists thinking about how to connect with their audiences, the public (think stem cell research), the government (think grants), and the media (think exposure to philanthropy). It’s all relevant.
Kimberly Bell, from the Alan Alda Center, has created a program that incorporates instruction with improvisation, and includes a live audience. “It’s not about acting, it’s about getting scientists to connect with their audience,” says Bell.
Christie Nicholson, contributing editor to Scientific American and co-founder of Publet, will be one of the moderators at the workshop. Christie says that a common problem is that scientists get too tangled up on the details of their work, and use scientific terms that people cannot understand. And, as science and technology becomes more and more sophisticated, scientists will find it even harder to understand each other. Christie promises that she has witnessed scientists become more comfortable, conversational, and less formal within an hour of the workshop. So, money and time well spent.
The Alan Alda workshop comes to SBP on September 21st at 8 am at the Fishman auditorium & simulcast for Lake Nona. Register here: sbpdiscovery.org/alda