Make it Personal: Strategies for Effective Science Communication

Speaker: 
Stephanie Hamilton
Institution: 
Department of Physics, University of Michigan
Date: 
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Time: 
2:00 pm
Location: 
NSII 2201
 
 
A long-held belief of scientists and science communicators has been in the "knowledge deficit" model of communication -- that is, the reason for public skepticism of science is simply because of lack of knowledge. In the knowledge deficit model, "educating the public" by providing them with more facts will change minds. However, a wealth of literature has demonstrated that fact-dumps are not effective at changing public views of science, because people generally make decisions using personal beliefs and experiences in addition to facts. In this seminar, I will discuss strategies to avoid falling back onto the knowledge deficit model and communicate your science more effectively. Please come prepared to interact with each other!
 
Dr. Stephanie Hamilton is a recent graduate from the University of Michigan physics department. Her graduate work focused on repurposing the Dark Energy Survey's extragalactic dataset for solar system astronomy. When she wasn't searching for and studying new objects orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune, she spent her time communicating new science results to other scientists and the general public, in addition to training fellow researchers to do the same. She has trained over 500 researchers in effective science communication techniques through initiatives like the RELATE organization at the University of Michigan and the Communicating Science Conference for graduate students (ComSciCon), and has regularly shared new science results with the public as an author for Astrobites and a 2019 AAAS Mass Media Fellow.
 
 
Host: 
DANIEL WHITESON