Make Your Data Talk

Making Data Talk
Communicating Public Health Data to the Public, Policy Makers, and the Press

A cyber-seminar today (January 26th, 2010) from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm Eastern.

This cyber seminar is part of and kicks off a series of monthly events by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The goal of these events is to “engage researchers, cancer control, and public health practitioners in a discussion around the successes and challenges of translating research into practice.”

Obviously, we are very excited about the NCI’s efforts, because one of our goals here at Closing the Science Gap is to engage the academic research community in communicating effectively with the public and shaping science policy.

Read more information about this event.

More details about the event from the NCI:

Event presenters will provide practical suggestions on how scientists and other public health practitioners can better communicate data to the public, policy makers, and the press in typical real-world situations. Following the presentation, you will be invited to share your experiences during an interactive question and answer session.

Featured Presenters:

David Nelson, M.D., M.P.H.
Director, Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program, National Cancer Institute

Brad Hesse, Ph.D.
Chief, Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch, National Cancer Institute

To register, please follow this link: Register Now!

After you register, you will receive a confirmation email with the toll free number, passcode, and your unique PIN. For more information, please contact Margaret Farrell at margaret-farrell@nih.gov or Alissa Gallagher at alissa.gallagher@nih.gov.

Using Art to Close the Science Gap

When we started this website, we sought to identify approaches that would help us in closing the widening gap between science and society.

We decided our first approach will be ART. We are pleased to announce the launch of Science Art Gallery .com.

The goals of Science Art Gallery is to blur the lines between art and science, such that our visitors (especially our non-scientist audience) would appreciate the visual as well as the conceptual beauty that science exhibits.

In addition, Science Art Gallery will feature science-inspired art for sale. A portion of every sale will be donated to fund research.

Taken together, Science Art Gallery is a self-sustaining mechanism to simultaneously close the science gap while raising funds to support cancer research.

Clinical and Translational Research Network

Welcome to CTSciNet, the Clinical and Translational Science Network, which is a web-based social networking infrastructure developed by Science Careers, AAAS, and sponsored by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

The objective of this network is to help scientists who are interested in becoming involved in the clinical and translational research field to communicate with others to establish collaborations, share ideas, discuss career-related issues, and more. In addition to the community, CTSciNet members have access to a fantastic collection of articles and resources for clinical and translational research.

For more information, details, and to register, please visit Welcome to CTSciNet.

If you are a basic scientist, once you join the community, please be sure to join the Translational Research for PhD Scientists group.

Learning from the Cool Gecko Video!

Below, I have embedded an amazing video at TED in June 2009.

There are many reasons why I wanted to point out this video. Here are a few:

1. it is an amazing illustration of how we can learn from nature.
2. importance of interdisciplinary approaches to scientific research
3. dynamic nature of deriving hypotheses and testing them
4. potential applications of scientific discovery to every day life.
5. tremendous enthusiasm and interest exhibited by the presenter about the topic.
6. the difference between presenting in a scientific meeting and to a general/public audience
7. it is pretty cool!

There are probably other reasons, but please enjoy this video…

Illustration of the Science News Cycle

Since before I started graduate school in August 2004, I have tremendously enjoyed Jorge Cham’s comic strips, and I have been an avid follower of PhDComics.com.

In his recent comic strip (below), Jorge cleverly illustrated the misrepresentation of research findings in the mass media.

Please Enjoy:

For more comic strips by Jorge Cham, please visit his website: PhDComics.com.

A Scientist Who Gets “It”

This weekend, I stumbled upon an old post (from December 08) by Dr. Racaniello, a virology scientist, about why he blogs and why scientists should also blog and/or podcast.

I really enjoyed reading his post and I was very glad to have stumbled upon it, because his goals are perfectly aligned with the objectives I had when I started this website (Closing the Science Gap). Dr. Racaniello understands the importance of communicating science to the public.

Further, I think that his blog serves as a model to help both senior and junior scientists alike to use the web as a tool to share ideas and learn from each other.

I encourage you to read his post and also note the comments between me and him at the end of the post.

Start a Blog!

Would you like to “Close the Gap” between your research and society? Here is a simple solution:

Start a blog! You can create a free blog in about 10 minutes using Blogger or Wordpress. Here is what you can blog about (and why):

1. your research and how it relates to the public.
This will “close the gap” by making your work more relevant to the public. In addition, individuals will understand the importance of your work and how it may help people and society in general.

2. your thoughts about anything!
As a scientist who uses the scientific method, you are almost always guaranteed to present a fresh perspective, critical thinking skills, and a scientific approach to general issues. While it may seem tenuous, I strongly believe that applying a scientific approach to many general areas of life will help many individuals and our society in general to become more responsible.

If nothing else, it will serve as a brief distraction for you… which, in my experience, usually refreshes my mind and help me bring a fresh perspective to any task or project on which I am working.

If you need technical help/assistance with setting up your blog or if you prefer a self-hosted (your-unique-domain.com) blog, please let me know at email [at] ClosingtheScienceGap [dot] com, and I would very gladly help you get started.

ResearchGate: Closing the Gap between Scientists

In addition to trying to “close the gap” between science and society, one of our goals here is to bring scientists closer to one another to foster openness, cooperation, and collaboration.

I would like to invite you to visit the “Facebook” for scientists: Research Gate launched about 6 months ago. It is a great tool to meet other scientists in your field for discussion and/or collaboration, join groups, and much more.

Visit Research Gate, create a profile, and network with the other 20,000 scientists who are the ResearchGate community.

What is “Closing the Science Gap”?

Since this is the first post in the category “Close The Gap”, I will describe what we mean by “close the gap”.  I am a young scientist, in fact, I am still in graduate school.  However, what I lack in experience, I make up for it with a unique point-of-view.

The way I see it, there are many gaps in the science field. There is a huge gap between the scientific research community and its intended “customer”, i.e. the general public.  I feel that, if we, as scientists, continue on the path we are currently on, these gaps will continue to grow deeper and wider.

My goal from this category (this whole website, actually) is to provide a place online for those who share my point of view to help them develop a bridge between the labs and the community.  This bridge serves two purposes:

1. To find ways for scientists to share their knowledge and experiences to educate the community.

2. The community would have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the value of scientific research.

Of course, this will not happen overnight… in fact, it will be a very long term process.  But as with any long journey, it starts with the first step.  As I embark on my journey as a young scientist, this website is my first step to identify my niche in science where I can create the most impact.

Will you join me and become a part of this journey?

Read out blog posts in the Closing the Science Gap category…