Civic Science Media Lab

ComSciCon-Michigan 2024
2024-10-26 - 2024-10-27 | East Lansing, MI, East Lansing, MI, United States
Communicating Science is a workshop series organized by graduate students, for graduate students, focused on science communication skills. Our goal is to empower future leaders in technical communication to share the results from research in their field to broad and diverse audiences, not just practitioners in their fields. For more information about ComSciCon events, read our most recent annual report.
ComSciCon provides a unique professional development experience to graduate students engaged in and committed to communicating research. Attendees interact with graduate student leaders in technical communication, from around the country, learn from professional communicators including journalists and educators, and produce original works of science communication for publication.
Our goal is to sustain an annual flagship workshop series each summer for graduate students from around the US and Canada, and a series of chapter workshop programs for graduate students from specific communities throughout the year. Applications for the workshops are open to graduate students from all fields of science and engineering who are interested in learning how to effectively communicate their research to both scientific and non-scientific audiences.

2024 Delta Murphy Lecture
2024-10-22 17:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB), Los Angeles, 90089, United States
2024 Delta Murphy Lecture
From Stories to Solutions: Inspiring Climate Action through Immersive Narratives

Learn how the nation’s leading storytellers are using creativity and innovation to inspire action on climate change! Join us for an evening with keynote speaker and renowned designer Jake Barton, who has created award-winning experiences for museums, brands, and public spaces. The keynote will be followed by a panel featuring storytellers who are redefining what it means to inspire climate action.
Keynote Speaker:
Jake Barton
Founder, Local Projects
Climate Fellow, Emerson Collective Head of Media Design,
National 9/11 Memorial & Museum
Jake Barton is Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Local Projects, an experience and exhibit design firm that has won numerous awards, including National Design Awards and Cannes Lions. Barton’s credits include landmark projects such as the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, and he is currently focused on creating immersive experiences that spark action around climate change. His TED Talk on the design of the 9/11 Memorial has over one million views, and he is on Fast Company’s list of Top 50 designers.
Panelists:
Johanna Burton
Director, The Museum of Contemporary Art
Art Historian
Johanna Burton is the Maurice Marciano Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, since 2021. Burton has been active in the contemporary art field for more than 20 years, including more than a decade of leadership experience in major museums and prominent arts and education institutions. An art historian, curator, writer, and educator, Burton’s past posts include her tenures as Executive Director of the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; Keith Haring Director & Curator of Education and Public Engagement at the New Museum, New York; Director of the Graduate Program at Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), New York; and Associate Director & Senior Faculty Member at the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program (ISP), New York. She was a 2019 Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) Fellow.
Billy Zane
Film and TV Actor and Producer
Science Storytelling Consultant
With more than 170 titles to his credit, actor Billy Zane is best known for starring in some of the most popular films and television shows of all time, including Titanic, Twin Peaks, and the Back to the Future and Sniper franchises. Most recently, he produced and starred in the feature film Waltzing With Brando, which focuses on film legend Marlon Brando’s work as an environmental activist. Zane is also a celebrated painter and photographer and is active with the Caltech Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Partnerships and The Caltech Fund, where he assists researchers with storytelling as they seek to commercialize their discoveries.
About the Delta Murphy Lecture Series:
Named in memory of the sustainable planning advocate, longtime Wrigley Institute board member, and former mayor of Whittier, CA, the Delta Murphy Lecture Series highlights socially connected topics such as environmental justice, interactions between humans and the natural world, and diversity in scientific fields.

Perspectives on Communicating Evolving Health and Science Information
2024-10-09 10:00 - 11:15 UTC
Effectively communicating about health and science with lay audiences as evidence evolves, conflicts, or is corrected is challenging. During this webinar, hosted by the Standing Committee on Advancing Science Communication, panelists will discuss the nature of these challenges and their perspectives on equipping people to understand the nature of science and how it evolves. They will offer evidence-based insights into how media outlets portray change and conflicting evidence in science and how this affects people’s perceptions of science. Finally, discussion will explore implications for improving science communication.
Moderator:
Brian Southwell, Distinguished Fellow and Lead Scientist for Public Understanding of Science at RTI International and Member of the Standing Committee on Advancing Science Communication
Panelists:
Sibel Erduran, Professor of Science Education and Director for Research, University of Oxford
Rebekah Nagler, Associate Professor, Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Minnesota
Ivan Oransky, Distinguished Journalist in Residence, New York University’s Arthur Carter Journalism Institute; Co-Founder, Retraction Watch

The Standing Committee on Advancing Science Communication brings together the diverse disciplines of science communication research and practice. Together, we work to more effectively engage all communities with science in ways that are equitable, evidence-based, and inclusive.

Big Teams Science
2024-10-08 - 2024-10-10 | Virtual
The third annual Big Team Science Conference will be held virtually via Zoom October 8-10, 2024. The goal of this three-day virtual conference is to bring together a multidisciplinary group of researchers, funders, and stakeholders to discuss advancements, challenges, and future opportunities related to big team science.
The third annual Big Team Science Conference will be held virtually via Zoom October 8-10, 2024. The goal of this three-day virtual conference is to bring together a multidisciplinary group of researchers, funders, and stakeholders to discuss advancements, challenges, and future opportunities related to big team science.
Submissions and Registration are now open!

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2024 Keynote Presenters

Noam Angrist, Ph.D.
Academic Director of the What Works Hub for Global Education | University of Oxford, UK
Implementation matters: Generalising treatment effects in education

Anna Dreber Almenberg, Ph.D.
Board member of the Institute for Replication & Johan Björkman Professor of Economics | Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Replication by plebiscite: Examining the replicability of online experiments selected by a decision market

Russell Poldrack, Ph.D.
Director of the SDS Center for Open and Reproducible Science & Professor of Psychology | Stanford University, US
Developing standards as a community: The Brain Imaging Data Structure

ASTC 2024 Annual Conference
2024-09-28 - 2024-10-01
The ASTC Annual Conference is one of the premier annual events for science-engagement professionals and leaders in science and technology centers and museums as well as allied organizations across North America and around the world.

Northeastern University Public Engagement with Science Hub September 2024 Seminar
2024-09-25 12:00 - 13:00 UTC | Boston, MA, United States
Hosted by Northeastern’s Public Engagement with Science Hub and the Multidisciplinary Prevention Science Working Group, this September gathering will feature Dr. Maria Elena Villar, Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication Studies who will present a talk titled “Strategies to engage communities in co-creation of prevention communications”.

Finding the funds: Science outreach and civic engagement funding opportunities
2024-08-28 14:00 - 15:30 UTC | Virtual
Join the ASBMB at their monthly “Finding the funds” webinar connecting ASBMB members with the unique funding opportunities available to them as BMB scientists. In this edition, the ASBMB Science Outreach and Communication Committee will host organizations that support broader impact efforts in science outreach, including civic engagement, informal education and the landscape of public engagement training. They will also highlight the ASBMB’s Science Outreach and Communication Grant program. Join us to discover the many ways you can get your science outreach efforts funded. #ASBMBSciOut
Register

Speakers

Jenny Luray Senior Vice President of Strategy and Public Engagement, Research!America

Michele McGuirl Acting Director for the Division for Research Capacity Building, National Institute of General Medical Sciences

Fanuel Muindi Professor, Northeastern University Founder/Director, Civic Science Media Lab

Odaelys Pollard, moderator Director of Research, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY Member of the ASBMB Science Outreach and Communication Committee

Emmett M. Smith, moderator Associate Professor of Biology and Biochemistry, Earlham College Member of the ASBMB Science Outreach and Communication Committee

Who should attend

Anyone interested in obtaining new funding or sustaining existing science outreach projects for public engagement. All career stages are welcome to attend.

2024 ComSciCon-Flagship Conference 2024
2024-07-24 - 2024-07-27 | Boston, MA, United States
About
ComSciCon provides graduate student attendees with a one-of-a-kind opportunity to meet early career leaders in Science Communication, learn from and interact with a remarkable group of invited experts, and produce an original work communicating complex technical concepts from science and engineering to a new audience.
At ComSciCon’s Flagship Workshop, participants build communication skills that scientists and other technical professionals need to express ideas to their peers, experts in other fields, and the general public.
Ample time is allocated for networking with science communication experts and developing science outreach collaborations with fellow workshop participants. Workshop participants will produce an original piece of science writing and receive feedback from workshop attendees and professional science communicators, including journalists, authors, public policy advocates, educators, and more.
Founded in 2012 by graduate students at Harvard University, MIT, and the University of Colorado at Boulder, nearly 3000 graduate students nationwide have already participated in ComSciCon programs, including our annual Flagship Workshops and Franchise Workshops which have been started by ComSciCon alumni across the US and Canada. Attendees have founded new science communication organizations in collaboration with other students at the event, published over 80 articles written at the conference in popular publications with national impact, and formed lasting networks with our student alumni and invited experts.
We are extremely grateful to our sponsors who are making ComSciCon 2024 possible!

Network for the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Science Communication Symposium: Civic Science & Ethics in the Age of AI: Building Trust
2024-07-09 - 2024-07-11 | Notre Dame, IN, Notre Dame, IN, United States
July 9–11, 2024
Civic Science & Ethics in the Age of AI: Building Trust
at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, USA.
Need more tools to demonstrate broader impacts of your science and research?
Learn the science behind better communication about research. The Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Symposium at the University of Notre Dame will explore innovative strategies for effective science communication and public engagement.
The symposium will cover various aspects of citizen/civic science such as fostering dialogue, improving accessibility and inclusivity, enhancing science literacy, and building trust between scientists and the public.
Join us July 9-11 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana and learn how to bridge the widening gap through workshops, panel discussions, poster presentations, and alternative methods of communicating science — even art.
Organizers:
Co-chairs: Joanne Fahey & Tammi Freehling
Consultants: Marlit Hayslett & Bruce Lewenstein
Contact: pcst-list@nd.edu

Trust in Science: Understanding the Trends and Implications for Science Communication
2024-05-30 14:00 - 15:30 UTC
Recent survey data show declines in trust in science that mirror earlier trends for other institutions, including journalism and government. New research is shedding additional light on those patterns and illuminating some of the mechanisms that underlie the aggregated trends. In this webinar, researchers consider the differences between credibility, confidence, and trust; describe new empirical findings; and discuss the implications for how to communicate science in a complex information landscape.
Moderator: Mariette DiChristina, Boston University
Panelists:
Katherine Ognyanova, Rutgers University
Arthur Lupia, University of Michigan
Liz Hamel, KFF

Trust in Science: Understanding the Trends and Implications for Science Communication from The National Academies on Vimeo.

Science Talk 2025
2024-04-03 - 2024-04-05
Science Talk is the annual conference of the Association of Science Communicators (ASC). ASC’s mission is to empower and inspire the science communication community to expand their communication potential and affect the world.

Generative AI and the Implications for Science Communication
2023-11-07 15:00 - 16:30 UTC | Virtual
New innovations in large language modeling and other generative artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT, have spurred debate about their capacities, risks, and broader societal implications. The Standing Committee on Advancing Science Communication is hosting a public webinar to 1) explore what these technologies are, how they work, and how they may change the information landscape going forward; 2) consider positive innovations they could facilitate in science communication; and 3) discuss systemic limitations and risks, as well as the broad ethical and social implications of these technologies.
Moderator:
Sandra González-Bailón, Standing Committee Member and Carolyn Marvin Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Panelists:
Melanie Mitchell, Professor, Santa Fe Institute
Sendhil Mullainathan, Roman Family University Professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at Chicago Booth School of Business, University of Chicago
Chirag Shah, Professor, Information School, University of Washington – Seattle
Sophie Bushwick, Technology Editor, Scientific American

Generative AI and the Implications for Science Communication from The National Academies on Vimeo.

SciPEP 2023: New Insights for Communicating Basic Science
2023-07-25 - 2023-07-26 | Virtual
On July 25-26, 2023, “SciPEP 2023: New Insights for Communicating Basic Science” explored new research, findings, and implications for how to support scientists communicating about basic, discovery science. Science communication scholars, practitioners, and trainers came together to discuss new insights and generated ideas and opportunities to advance basic science communication research and practice.
Two years earlier, SciPEP’s “Communicating the Future: Engaging the Public in Basic Science” conference virtually gathered more than 1,200 people from 60 countries to explore what we know – and don’t know – about basic science communication. The sheer magnitude of the conference (and deep, rich discussions there and since) reinforced that this is what the community is hungry for: evidence-based tools and resources to better equip scientists and professional communicators for basic science communication. A detailed summary of the 2021 conference and video recordings are available for reference. Also, the SciPEP team published “Charting a Path for Public Engagement in Basic Science: A Prospectus,” to summarize key questions that arose from the 2021 conference and a framework for addressing those questions.
The SciPEP team has identified (and commissioned) new research, and convened or facilitated conversations, that have deepened our understanding of key gaps and refined the questions identified during the 2021 conference.
Attendees of SciPEP 2023 learned more about these findings, connected with others to discuss new insights, and helped plan the next steps for our community.
