Posts in: Preparing Science Leaders

Red Cross Phlebotomist: So, do you work here on campus? Me: Yes. RCP: What do you do? I pause. I don’t know about you, but this is a tough question for me to answer in casual conversation. How much information should I give? How do I really describe my job in a few lines? Enter: The Elevator Speech. I have only done this once in an elevator, but I ...

At the Huntsman Marine Science Centre and Aquarium in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, two harbor seals gaze through the glass at 20 marine ecologists and me.This underwater room is a fitting setting for a three-day communications workshop for senior academics, post docs and grad students in the Canadian Healthy Oceans Network or CHONe. Their research focuses on the div...

The discussion was bright and busy. Everyone at the table was talking rapidly, asking questions and sharing thoughts about science journalism and outreach. Everyone, that was, except the scientist sitting across from me. She had been tentative and largely silent, but suddenly she was grinning. “I get it,” she said, “I am a runner, right? People are always say...