Join host Kacie as she talks with Jen Christiansen, Senior Graphics Editor at Scientific American Magazine, about the evolving world of science communication through visual storytelling. As both an artist and scientist, Jen shares insights from her journey of combining these fields and discusses her book “Building Science Graphics.” They explore urgent questions about making evidence-based information accessible, particularly for communities most impacted by climate change and public health challenges. The conversation explores how science communication is transforming, from traditional institutional channels to social media platforms, and the critical need to help audiences understand the scientific process itself.
Transcript
Kacie 0:19
Welcome to Consider this Next on CivicSci-Radio. I’m your host, Kacie Luaders. Here on the show, we connect with diverse voices across the civic science landscape, scholars, practitioners and leaders shaping the intersections of science within our society. Our mission to uncover lessons from their work and translate them into actionable insights, like all programs from the Civic science media lab, whether on video, radio or a digital print, consider this next as here to keep decision makers, from researchers and practitioners to local community members, informed, inspired and equipped with the latest insights. Today, we’re diving into a conversation about how we share scientific information in an increasingly complex world. Our guest is Jen Christiansen, senior graphics editor at Scientific American magazine, who brings fresh insights into making evidence based information accessible and engaging through visual storytelling in an era where scientific literacy has never been more important, we’ll explore how the field of science communication is transforming from traditional institutional channels to the democratized spaces of social media. Jen shares her perspective on the urgent responsibility science communicators have to make complex information accessible, especially for communities most impacted by issues like climate change and public health crises. Join us for a discussion about the changing role of science communicators, the challenges of conveying evolving scientific understanding and how we can better serve audiences who need evidence based information to make crucial personal decisions. All right, so first up, if you could simply introduce yourself and tell the folks what it is that you do
Jen Christiansen 2:28
My name is Jen Christiansen. I’m a senior graphics editor at Scientific American magazine, so that means that I produce an art direct data visualizations and information graphics for the magazine, then they go in print and online. Sometimes I produce those myself or actually execute them myself. Other times, I hire freelance designers and art direct them through the project, so I act as a project manager in that way.
Kacie 2:56
Okay, so that’s interesting. I would consider myself a creative person, and I would love to know for you as a fellow creative person, how did you start in the science communication field, like, how did that become the trajectory that you followed?
Jen 3:12
Yes, in high school, I loved my art classes and my science classes. And in fact, often I would bring art into my science classes note taking. I’d be drawing pictures instead of writing words. It just helped me remember things more clearly and kind of make sure that I didn’t zone out I was really focusing. And then in college, I thought, Okay, I’ll probably do the scientist track, right? Because that felt like a clear path. I knew that you could major in the science and then maybe go to grad school and then work at a university or do research. So I thought I loved geology. So I studied geology. I loved going on the field courses, and I loved the idea that geology started with a big picture. We were talking to, like Earth science right away, and like the history of the world and the universe and all of this, and then focusing in more and more. But I couldn’t let go of my art classes, like I was spending just as much time in the studio as the lab. And as the years went on, and it became time to decide what’s next. If I graduate college soon, what happens next? I still couldn’t quite shake that feeling that I wasn’t ready to let go of the arts, and so I started looking at graduate programs that would allow me to combine those things, like museum education, because then it’s objects and visuals, and potentially using art as a way to communicate science. And then I found a graduate program at the University of California, Santa Cruz in scientific illustration. At the time, I was still a resident of California, so I knew if I wanted to do this program, this was a good time, because the tuition would be less for in state. And so I gave it a shot. And so then that led to an internship, which led to apprenticeship style learning in the magazine world. So then I started learning on the job on how to more about publishing and how I can bring science and art. Together, but most mostly, I knew I wanted to exist within that world of science. I loved thinking about evidence based learning and research, but I liked using a visual language to tell those stories, so I figured I’d just tell other people’s science stories with the visual language that I was comfortable in.
Kacie 5:21
Wow, very cool. Yes. I remember when they added the A in STEM, and then it became steam, and it was like, how does all this work? But you just flawlessly demonstrated how the sciences can communicate languages. And so I would love to know what are some of the most valuable lessons that you’ve learned about the sort of the melding of creativity and science,
Jen 5:49
I’ve learned there’s definitely a lot of different ways to do that. I take more of a literal approach. In this world of information design, it’s very much communicating very specific information using visuals to tell that to convey that information. But the world of science communication for visual in the visual world is huge. There’s people who are creating more evocative pieces of art, think museum or gallery pieces, that also communicate things about science or are inspired by science. There’s also people like in fashion, and who are using technology and their knowledge of science to imbue that into their kind of artistic realm. So for me, it happens to be very literal approach, but I’ve learned over the years about how broad this kind of visual science communication world really is. Other things I’ve learned, probably one of the biggest things is to think about your context right now in the magazine world, just thinking about something as simple as I might be working on a graphic for the pages of a magazine. So a spread that you open up and you want to see this lush illustration, but that same information needs to be conveyed at some point on a mobile phone screen. So I’m constantly thinking about, not only what is a good solution to tell this story or to convey this information, but is that solution going to work in the context in which it’s presented? And that’s just a really a simple and literal example, but when you take that context to mean different audiences, different different just environments and everything. It really a huge
Kacie 7:23
impact. So actually, you perfectly lead me to my next question. Okay, you’re talking about context, as far as media, but also, right now, I’m curious about the context of our world, our society, our socio political climate. For you, what is the role of science communication at this particular time of our I’ll say societal development,
Jen 7:51
good way of putting it. So I think there’s two pronged and one side of that is the opportunities. Because I think it’s fair to say that right now, it’s never been easier for somebody to get their message out there. If you can afford a smartphone, you can create content that goes out to public, and platforms like Tiktok have spaces that kind of celebrate authenticity and realness. So you don’t even really need, like, high production value, expensive tools, lighting, all of these different things to to share that content. So I think informal science communication has never been easier for a wider range of people, like when I was starting in the field, it was very much like museums and universities and magazines talking to broad audiences. Now, I feel like there’s a lot of people talking to each other, and people have access to to get their stories out there, and also to hear from other people who aren’t necessarily parts of these kind of more authoritative, top down kinds of institutions. Also, though, I think it’s fair to say that folks with fewer kind of financial safety nets, particularly at this moment in time, are going to have a harder time bouncing back from things like pandemics and the effects of climate change and things like that. I think at this moment in time, the role of science communicators, it’s really important to provide folks that are most at risk with evidence based information so that they can make personal decisions that have very tangible and real impact on their day to day decisions. And I feel like that feels much more urgent at this moment than perhaps 510, 15 years ago, and so I think that science communicators have a responsibility to really try to make information that people need in order to make personal decisions accessible, available in a language that people will understand, and to really also. To listen to folks who have questions about that information and engage more directly. I’m still trying to figure out how to do that myself. If there were answers, I think we wouldn’t be maybe in that position right now and that kind of level of urgency, I think this is something that a lot of science communication researchers have been studying for a while, but I think that practitioners like myself still have a lot to learn, and it’s our responsibility to get up to speed pretty quickly right now.
Kacie 10:25
Hey, I would love to follow up on that with you, because this melding of informal science communication mediums, like you said, like Tiktok or people doing substacks And beehives and YouTubes, versus things coming from academia and museums, I would love to know like for the folks who are listening right now, who may be in the academic spaces, who may be thinking like, yeah, I dabbled with a Tiktok, or I check it sometimes I don’t really use it. What are some of the things that for you right now you’re still figuring out or questioning as you’re sort of traveling between the two worlds of formal science communication, informal science communication. I think that could be really helpful for folks listening to hear
Jen 11:14
Yeah. So I learned apprenticeship style during this moment, where the thought was that you just need to give people the information. The gap here is that people just don’t know how vaccines work. So you tell them how it works. Problem solved. Everybody will be on board. But they’re beginning to realize through different research papers and whatnot, and just through watching behaviors over time, that fails to take into account a lot of other really important things, like people’s belief systems, their experiences, what they’ve heard informally, and and, and so just kind of providing some facts doesn’t always work in the way that we think it should, and that there’s some more work that needs to be done in terms of talking about like how the process of science works and why a bit of information you may have heard at the beginning of the pandemic, oh, we just all need to wash our hands, and then COVID is fine, and then a few months later they’re like, oh, forget the hand washing. We’ll do that. But also you need to wear masks. And so when you start to get mixed messages like that, without acknowledging the process of science that’s going through and forming those decisions, if the science, practice or communication of science isn’t a part of your everyday life, that could be really confusing, taking into account people that are coming from that other perspective and just that broader picture of how science works, why there might be conflicting information. Do they have questions? And trying to figure out how to grapple with all of that, the reason I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do that my own work is, meanwhile, I’m creating graphics on deadline, and then I need to convey very specific information, and this idea of involving the audience in the process of making that graphic isn’t a part of my formal workflow right now, I need to figure out how to either make that a part of my formal workflow, or follow up and ask people like, hey, this graphic that published, what do you think about it? Did you have questions? Are there things that you think? Was there information that you need that’s not in here? And start to learn more about from the audience what it is they need from this, rather than just facts.
Kacie 13:22
Thank you so much. That was great. Can you perhaps share a recent, memorable project or an accomplishment that you’ve completed? Maybe you’re still working on it? What’s something that you are super proud of?
Jen 13:35
Yeah, and I’m glad you asked, because it’s my book, building science graphics. I wrote it, gosh, I think it’s been just over a year ago, maybe almost two years ago now, and I it allowed me to take some time and really think about what I’ve learned about making science graphics over the years, but then also provided me the space and time to think about things like what I was just talking about, like, what is the science of Science Communication, and how can I apply that to the act of making graphics? Why is it important all of that? So it forced me to carve out the time to really dive into more of the literature, absorb that, figure out how that relates to the work that I do, and to visual science communication and and just learn from a lot of people that know a lot more than I do, and then bring that together through my lens. And so I’m really proud of it, because it pulls together a lot of resources and highlights the work of a lot of other people on everything from the science of science communication to Color Theory and Composition and all sorts of different things. So that’s my proudest accomplishment as of now.
Kacie 14:41
Oh, amazing, and congratulations. So would you say that your book is geared towards an audience that’s like lay people? Is this for people who have a particular interest in design or graphics? Or would you say, is this book for more of. Folks in the academic space.
Jen 15:01
So the book is called Building Science graphics, and it’s an illustrated guide to communicating science through diagrams and visualizations. It’s got a few different audiences, so I think this will definitely help scientists, but it’s also for designers and science communicators who want to be more intentional about how they use visuals. So I think there’s something in here for anybody that wants to convey information, scientific information, through visuals. Some chapters for designers will be familiar, like how to use some of the basic design principles, but what they might really get out of it is the science communication sections, whereas a scientist, actually, a scientist would probably get something out of all of it, science, communication and design. But I think even people who are practicing artists and designers now, it might just give them a different lens or to look at their work through and some more references on particular areas that they’re they’re interested in learning more about.
Kacie 15:57
So what do you believe right now is the most crucial role of science communicators today, and I guess maybe even looking towards the next, I don’t know, four years or so going into the near future, what do you think the Most important role will be? Yes, I
Jen 16:20
think Elizabeth resaquala, who’s the president of African Gong, has written and said some things that really strike me as being particularly important at this moment in time for us to think about as she puts it, it boils down to the idea that scientific literacy supports analytical thinking, so an ability to think through cause and effect. My takeaway is that science communicators can help our audience and our collaborators and each other. Kind of exercise that muscle by demystifying the practice and findings of science, the more we can talk about cause and effect in ways that are accessible to different audiences, our peers, different age groups, all different kinds of folks just to be thinking in terms of cause and effect and evidence based information just continues to encourage people to think through how and why things happen, and just analytical thinking in general, but also, while we’re talking about misinformation, I have to share kind of, one of my favorite references on the topic. It’s a really great video series called crash course on navigating digital information. It’s hosted by John Green. It’s in partnership with media wise and the what is it the pointer Institute and the Stanford History Education Group, but it’s a series of 10 really short videos that really help people figure out how to navigate through digital information, in particular to help understand if something’s misinformation and what kind of what evidence based information is out there that they can have more kind of trust in perhaps, than all of the noise. I’m just excited that the science communication world is feeling really robust and energized and connected. I feel like for a long time, everybody’s on their own track. I was doing information graphics and somebody else was doing books for particular audiences. And I’m just excited that through podcasts like yours and conversations that everybody’s good, there’s a little bit more blurred boundaries between the different ways in which we communicate with people, and so we can maybe support each other in figuring out what works what doesn’t, and how we can collaborate.
Kacie 18:38
Today’s conversation with Jen Christiansen highlighted the evolving landscape of science communication and our responsibility to make evidence based information accessible to all. As you think about your own role in sharing scientific knowledge, consider this next. How might you gather feedback from your audience about your science communication. Think about creating opportunities for dialog rather than just delivering information. What methods could you use to learn whether your content actually meets your audience’s needs when communicating changing scientific understanding, like we saw during the pandemic, how can you better explain the scientific process itself? Consider ways to help your audience understand why recommendations might shift as new evidence emerges. If you’re in an institutional setting, how might you bridge the gap between formal and informal science communication. Could you adapt your content for platforms where your audience already engages while maintaining scientific accuracy, but finally, reflect on the communities most impacted by scientific issues like climate? Change or public health challenges. How could you make your science communication more accessible and relevant to those who need this information to make personal decisions before we sign off, I’d like to offer a big thank you to you, our listeners, for tuning in and engaging with these crucial topics. If you found value in this episode, please don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review our podcast. Your support helps us to continue to bring you insightful conversations like this one, until next time, keep nurturing your curiosity and stay connected to the science all around you. This is Kacie Luaders signing off from Consider this Next on Civic-Sci Radio. Stay curious.
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