2013 Essays

Reaching out to science communicators Pt. 1

Drew, Joshua Adam

Growing up I used to watch a lot of nature documentaries. Shark Week, Nature, National Geographic, even old Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom, these were always on. As I grew older I transitioned from Zoo Books and Ranger Rick to Smithsonian and Natural History magazines. These articles were a real inspiration to me, and showed me the diversity of things one could study as a scientist. Now that I am doing science of my own, I am excited to find ways to communicate my work to others. While this blog serves as a way for me to share what I am doing, I have also had the good fortune to collaborate with science communicators and journalists to tell share my research in a much more professional way. For example this summer I am thrilled to be working with Helen Scales to document our expedition to Fiji. There are two main reasons why I like to collaborate with communicators. The first is that I like what I do, and hopefully without sounding egotistical, I think what I do is pretty interesting and I’d like to share my passion with others. Secondly, and perhaps less selfishly, the state of science awareness in the United States is pretty low, and I have great admiration for people who spend their days helping to share good stories and inform people as to why science matters.