S4 Ep 6 - Jen Martin on 'Communicating Science'

"Doing the thing is not the whole thing, it's also the sharing it with the audiences who either need it or are simply interested in it...science isn't finished until it's communicated"

Our guest today is Associate Professor Jen Martin. Jen leads the University of Melbourne’s acclaimed Science Communication Teaching program and is passionate about helping scientists develop the skills they need to be visible, to make connections and to have impact.

As well as teaching, Jen is a prolific communicator of science. Over the last 18 years her voice has become a familiar companion to many as she talks weekly about science on Melbourne radio, and co-hosts the fun and highly informative ‘Let’s Talk SciComm’ podcast.

In today’s episode, Jen shows us how communicating science in inclusive and non-elitist ways is not an ‘optional extra’ to research, but rather a fundamental part of the process, with its own set of teachable skills.

A full transcript of the episode can be accessed here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/s4-ep-5-jen-martin-on-communicating-science

Relevant Links:

• A/Prof Jen Martin | The University of Melbourne
• Dr Jen Martin | Personal website (scidocmartin.com)
• Let's Talk SciComm Podcast | Spotify 
• Science Communication Program | The University of Melbourne
  
  

Episode edited by Samara Greenwood and Grace Martin

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast with current producers, Samara Greenwood and Carmelina Contarino. You can find more about us on our blog, website, bluesky, twitter, instagram and facebook feeds. Music by ComaStudio.

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne.

HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Transcript

Transcript of Jen Martin on ‘Communicating Science’

Samara Greenwood: Welcome back to The HPS Podcast, where we discuss topics across History, Philosophy and Social Studies of science. I am your host, Samara Greenwood.

First up – a little bit of news. It has been a big week for the podcast over on the rapidly growing social media platform Bluesky. Earlier in the week we created an ‘HPS Starter Pack’ in which you can find and subscribe to a list of accounts for lots of fabulous HPS folk on the platform, and we were very excited to see it has taken off! 

If you are on Bluesky, please do take a look at the pack, it is pinned to the top of our feed. If you are thinking of joining Bluesky – please do – we have been on it for over a year, and it really does have a much warmer, more conversational vibe then you usually expect from a communication platform.

Speaking of communication, today on the podcast our guest is Associate Professor Jen Martin talking all things science communication. Jen leads the University of Melbourne’s acclaimed Science Communication teaching program and is passionate about helping scientists develop the skills they need to be visible, to make connections and to have impact.

As well as teaching, Jen is a prolific communicator of science. Over the last 18 years her voice has become a familiar companion to many as she talks weekly about science on Melbourne radio and co-hosts the fun and highly informative ‘Let’s Talk SciComm’ podcast. 

In today’s episode, Jen shows us how communicating science in inclusive, non-elitist ways is not an ‘optional extra’ to the research process, but rather a necessary part, with its own set of teachable skills. As Jen notes, science is largely funded by the public and done for the public. This means ‘doing’ the research is never the whole thing – we also need to commit to sharing that research broadly. 

The critical importance of communication to science is summed up beautifully in one of Jen’s favourite quotes: ‘Science isn’t finished until it is communicated’.

Samara Greenwood: Hello, Jen. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. 

Jen Martin: Thanks so much for inviting me. What an honour. 

Samara Greenwood: First, could you tell us a bit about your background? How did you make your way into science communication? 

Jen Martin: I'm an ecologist by training. So, I spent many, many years out in the beautiful wilds of Australia, following animals around, trying to work out what they were doing and why they were doing it. I guess that came from a childhood where I spent lots of time in nature, lots of time camping and being in the bush. 

My dad was also a zoologist. So, I just always had this kind of keen sense that animals and plants and ecosystems, you know, they're struggling. Humans are being pretty awful on this planet and who is advocating for them? Then seeing amazing conservation biologists who are doing that work and thinking, ‘yeah, that's, that's what I want to contribute to.’

Fast forward and at the end of my PhD and I'd done some really interesting work on the behavioural ecology of this gorgeous possum species in northeast Victoria. I had this knowledge that I wanted people who lived in the local area to know about - what this animal needs in terms of requirements and old trees with hollows and food trees and all this sort of stuff. But, what the university was telling me to do was to publish academic papers and go to academic conferences and build my academic track record. 

I wasn't against doing those things obviously, but I could also see that it was really important that I share the knowledge that I had with the local farmers and the local land managers and the local politicians and anyone who needed that information, as sure as hell they were not going to be reading academic papers or going to academic conferences. 

I ended up actually quite miserable, to be honest. Thinking, ‘What is the point? I didn't do this just to build my track record. I did it to try and do something real and meaningful in the world, and I feel completely inadequate because I have no idea how to share these ideas with these audiences. I don't even know where to start. Where does that leave me?’ 

So that set me off on this completely different track of thinking, ‘well, in all my years of education, so an arts degree, a science degree, a master’s degree, and a PhD, that's a lot of years at Uni, why had I never been taught communication skills explicitly? Why didn't I know how to communicate with different audiences? Why didn't I know how to not sound like a boring academic?’ 

I did a lot of teaching during my PhD, and I went straight from my PhD into a one-year teaching position at the university. I started going to various meetings and putting my hand up, often the youngest person in the room and often the only woman in the room, saying, ‘excuse me, but why don't we teach communication skills to our science students?’

I'd done my due diligence, I knew there was very clear evidence that that was the number one skill that employers look for. But when I asked that question, inevitably I got the same reply over and over again, which was, ‘oh no, you don't have to teach that stuff, they just pick it up by osmosis.’ 

I got progressively and progressively more angry, to be honest, with that response, and eventually ended up being a bit facetious. I don't think I ever said this out loud, but in my mind what was going on was things like, ‘right, so if I want to be a concert pianist, all I have to do is just sit beside one and watch them and soak up how to be a concert pianist? Sure, that sounds like a great way to learn skills.’ It just didn't make sense to me. 

I took part in a competition called Fresh Science, which helps early career scientists develop their communication skills, and it really showed me very clearly that you can take a group of people who aren't experienced or skilled at communicating complex ideas to different audiences and - it's not rocket science, using the old saying. You can learn those skills relatively quickly, but it's explicit teaching. You have to have a teacher who can talk to you about the skills, you have to practice, you have to get feedback, you have to practice again. All of those things that I just didn't see happening at the university with our science students. 

So, it took a really long time to get to where I am now and a lot of frustration along the way. But I feel so fortunate and privileged now to do what I do, which is to work with this incredible team of scientists who are all deeply, deeply passionate about helping students - not just students, but scientists, full stop - to be more effective at communicating their ideas in different ways into different audiences. I just feel very, very lucky to get to do what I do. 

Samara Greenwood: That sounds wonderful. To make change, it needs someone to be just a bit dogged at times, doesn't it? 

Jen Martin: Well, I had ten one-year contracts on the way. I was kind of blinkered in my vision. I just couldn't think of anything else that I wanted to do. 

The other thing that participating in Fresh Science really showed me was that there was nothing that I was so fascinated by that I wanted to research one little thing ever again. 

I loved my PhD, but I'm a jack of all trades. I love all different areas of science. I love learning about all different areas of science. I love listening to scientists from all different areas talk about what they do. So, I just was really clear that I don't see myself having a career where I focus on narrow things anymore. I want to be working across a huge range of different ideas. I knew that's what I wanted to do and I guess I was young and foolish and didn't give up. 

Samara Greenwood: You have provided a wonderful description about how you founded the highly successful science communication program here at the University of Melbourne. So, I was wondering, did you have a particular vision for the course when you started it?

Jen Martin: I had zero vision, because at that stage I had no idea what I was even aiming for or what was even possible. 

It started as one subject. The first year we offered it there were 27 students. All I knew was that I thought that it would be an advantage to these students to start thinking about different audiences, different modes of communication, recognising that the way you're trained to write as a scientist is not an effective way to write for other audiences. I wanted more students to feel empowered when it came to public speaking.

It started as one little subject. What we have now, it's not even really a course, it's a suite of subjects which have been designed really carefully for a particular cohort of students, whether they're undergrad or postgrad and research active or not research active.

But I had no idea what I was trying to build. I just had so much to learn. I was really at the beginning of my teaching career, as well as my science communication career, as well as my academic career - at the start of all this. It took a long time to work out really what I wanted to be contributing. 

At that stage I also hadn't understood that if I persisted for long enough and was pushy enough that I could craft a job where I don't do any research. Basically, half of my job is teaching, and half of my job is actually doing public engagement work - where I'm doing the communicating as well. And gosh, if I'd known that was possible, I would have felt even more convinced in persevering because now I just love what I do so much. 

Samara Greenwood: Beyond practical skills, what do you find your students get most out of the program? 

Jen Martin: I think an understanding of where they fit in the scientific landscape.

I think when you're in science and you're studying science, it can be hard to step back and recognise the kind of elitist history of science and the way we're trained really to communicate in ways that are quite exclusive of people without the training. So, I think our students come out, yes, with a whole lot of practical skills, but also this sense of recognising what a privilege it is to have access to this education.

Also, to recognise that the vast majority of scientific research, at least in Australia, is publicly funded. It's funded by taxpayers. So, coming away with a sense that it's not just a fun, quirky, add on, extra optional thing to maybe think about communicating to someone else one day. It's actually part of our obligation.

If our work is going to be funded by the public and the public doesn't have access to academic journals, partly because they're behind paywalls, but also because they're written in ways that you couldn't possibly understand effectively without that training, then it's a really important responsibility that we think about people who don't have scientific training, how they can find out; What did we do? Why did we do it? What did we find out? What does that mean? 

I love the fact that our students come out with this broader view of how they fit into the world of science and the ways maybe they can contribute to breaking down some of those barriers and helping more people in the world to feel like actually science is everywhere. It belongs to everybody. 

Not everyone has to do it and not everyone ever will do it, but I feel like everyone should feel as though they can understand it or find information that they want in a way that's accessible to them. 

Samara Greenwood: …and feel part of the excitement of doing scientific research. Part of what I've found exciting coming in from a history and philosophy of science perspective is the creativity and the problem solving. Science can be like solving mysteries. I think that's something that really can engage everyone, right? 

Jen Martin: Yes, absolutely. It’s sad to me how many people have had experiences, usually at high school, where they've either been told they're not good enough for this or they're not smart enough. 

We know maths anxiety is a very real thing, and I think science anxiety is also a real thing. 

People who, through no fault of their own, end up with kind of a brick wall separating them from any sort of STEM ideas because they just feel like it's separate to them. 

Whereas COVID showed us very clearly, everyone needs to be able to make decisions based on the best evidence we have about all sorts of things in their lives. To have someone who feels like there's a brick wall between them and science or scientists or evidence, that's a really big problem.

Samara Greenwood: I love your motto, ‘science isn't finished until it's communicated.’ Could you tell us a little bit about what that phrase means to you? 

Jen Martin: Sir Mark Walport was the former Chief Government Science Advisor in the UK and that quote came from a speech that he gave. 

In my mind, I wish the quote was, ‘science isn't finished until it's been communicated to your target audience and they've understood it and they've taken whatever action they need to take on the basis of it.’ But that's a pretty crap quote. It wouldn't do nearly so well. People wouldn't remember it.

I just think it reminds us that doing the research is a privilege, an honour, an excitement, a delight, a really hard slog sometimes, you know, let's not romanticise it here, but doing the thing is not the whole thing. It's also the sharing it with the audiences who either need it or are simply interested in it. 

It's interesting because we ask our students at the start of every semester, ‘why do you study science?’ With the joke that, if you were doing it either to get rich or famous, you're in the wrong room. But inevitably, every single person comes back with something along the lines of, because I want to help people, or because I want to make a difference to the world, or just because I want to have an impact, I want to leave the world better than I found it. All of these beautiful sentiments. I think, until we recognise that communication is the absolute foundation of being able to do those things, we're kind of lost. 

Doing the thing isn't enough. We have to share the thing in a way that doesn't just suit us. In fact, we have to do it in ways potentially that don't suit us, but in ways that will resonate and land and be meaningful for all of the different audiences out there.

Samara Greenwood: You also run a wonderful podcast called Let's Talk SciComm, which in part involves interviews with guests on how they communicate science effectively. I'm interested to know how your own perspective on science communication has changed through discussions like these?

Jen Martin: The podcast is funny because where it came from was that I'd been commissioned to write a textbook about science communication, and I tried really hard. It was during the COVID years, so it was a bit tricky, homeschooling children and working and all the rest, but I just couldn't make progress on it. I was waking up at 3am in a sweat because I knew I needed to have written more of the book than I had. I was just confused because I love the subject matter and don't generally struggle with writing, I quite like writing, but I just couldn't make progress. 

Eventually, through the help of a friend and colleague, I worked out that the whole reason I couldn't progress was because I actually didn't want to write a textbook. To me, a textbook would end up being something that most students would never access. It would be behind a big price tag. They'd never buy it. It would sit on a shelf and rot. 

What came out of that very clearly was I want this sort of training to be free, to be accessible, to be available to anybody, anytime, who has any interest in improving their skills. Because not all universities, in fact not many universities, offer the sort of communication training we do here at Melbourne. 

So, that's where the podcast came from. It has been this wonderful mix of us sharing our training but also finding all these wonderful people in the world of STEM who do amazing communication work and just exploring with them what that looks like.

That's a very long-winded way to get to your question, but my answer is, I've just been opened up to seeing science communication as being so much more diverse and broad and wonderful and awe inspiring than I ever thought. 

I have my little things I do. I write a bit. I do some radio. I do this, that, and the other. But there are people out there doing the most wonderful communicating with so many different kinds of communities in all different ways, and all of them are driven by this passion, this sense of I want to make this accessible to more people. I just end up on a constant high really whenever we interview anybody. Because you come away thinking, ‘Wow, that's amazing. Why didn't I already know about that? You're so fantastic.’ 

Samara Greenwood: What are some of the more unusual ones you have come across? 

Jen Martin: I love talking to visual communicators because that's not something that I have any skills in. I can talk and I can write, but I don't have the ability to make incredible graphical abstracts or beautiful illustrations or, just some of the creativity that people bring to their science communication. 

I don't know, listen to the podcast. There's just too many to list. People who've really brought, as you say, incredible creativity to the world of STEM, which I just love. 

Samara Greenwood: As both a teacher and practitioner of science communication, what would you say is your personal philosophy of science communication?

Jen Martin: I'm a science nerd. I grew up in a family with science. I'm not anti-science in any way, shape or form, but I am anti the idea of science being something that belongs to the elite few, and that is done in ways that exclude people, whether it's women, whether it's people with different cultural backgrounds, the fact that science is almost exclusively conducted in English, anything that excludes diversity. 

I just think that the world is full of innumerable, terrible problems and the only way we're going to find ways to tackle these problems is by bringing together people who see things really differently, think about the world really differently. We desperately need diversity. I just reject this idea of science as being something that is done by old white men, really, who speak English.

So, my philosophy is around how can we bring in the voices and the perspectives and the visions and the attitudes of people from all different places and backgrounds and help them to feel that science is also part of them and that they can be part of science and that it can be more inclusive.

Look at me, position of privilege, white woman, speak English as a first language. I'm not for a moment suggesting that I have any understanding of how hard it might be to break into science without those privileges. But I guess at least my philosophy is around trying really hard to listen and to try and understand where some of the barriers might be. If, with the little skill set that I have, there are ways to bring more people in and to give more people a voice in science, then that's what I'm trying to do. 

Samara Greenwood: Lovely. I'm interested to know; do you draw on research from HPS (or history and philosophy of science) in your work at all? 

Jen Martin: I knew there was going to be an HPS question, given, the podcast! And I have to be completely honest and say - not directly. Not through lack of interest, but through lack of time.

I wouldn't say I keep up with literature in any effective way these days, but I do have HPS in my background. I have an arts degree and I did study HPS. So, I feel like the world of HPS has been part of my understanding of science for a really long time and I feel like that is part of how I think about science. I have a much more I guess deeper and more nuanced understanding of what science is and how it works and what it is in society, but also what it isn't in society because of dipping my toes into HPS and I feel really grateful for that. I think it's made me a better scientist. 

I think having an arts degree has also made me a better science communicator. When I think back to where I learned some of the skills that I now draw on, they didn't come from my science degree, they came from my arts degree. So, I feel pretty fortunate that I had that opportunity.

Samara Greenwood: What do you see as the biggest challenge for science communicators today? 

Jen Martin: I guess the first one that comes to mind is not going to be of any surprise to anybody and that is just, there are quite easy ways these days for people to have very large audiences and very big platforms and to be very visible and very vocal even if they have no idea what they're talking about, and that I think is really hard.

Of course it's changing, it's changing without question, but because of these sort of remnants of a sense of science being done by people in lab coats and being very removed from society and not speaking in a way that every other person can understand, I still think there's some of that hangover. That means when someone young and gorgeous has a big platform on whatever their social media, it's a big problem that everyone will listen even if they have no credible information to share. 

I think cutting through all of the misinformation and all of the fake news and all of the pseudoscience and a lot of the wellness stuff that's out there - that would definitely be one of the big problems. How can scientists get a platform in the same way? 

Which I guess would link to what I would say is my second biggest challenge. I think that is just time. I think being a scientist today is very, very difficult. Not suggesting that other jobs aren't also incredibly difficult and time consuming.  I can only talk about the one that I know. 

There are a lot of demands, huge administrative demands. The sort of reward structures that scientists operate within, the constant pressure to publish more, in better journals, to have more citations to bring in more grant money, to increase the visibility, it's never enough. There's always pressure to do more and more and more. 

That means that some of these other things that I might believe are really important, where people with accurate evidence based information need to be there and need to be visible and need to be seen, it's kind of understandable for someone to say, ‘but Jen, I don't have time to do that. I don't have time to cultivate an audience on Instagram and make an Instagram reel every day. Are you kidding? I've got grant money. I've got texts to write, I've got teaching to do, I've got manuscripts to edit.’

So I think time is a really big problem, because there are big forces at work out in the world. Sometimes the people who have the most money and the most time are the people that we should least be listening to. 

Samara Greenwood: They are two big challenges you've mentioned just there.

Jen Martin: Yes, and they're intertwined, right? Because we're up against people with a lot more money and time behind them than we are as academics are ever going to have. 

Samara Greenwood: Then on the flip side, what is your perspective on the question of public trust in science? 

Jen Martin: Gosh, I just think that's one of the all-time most interesting questions. 

I gave a lecture earlier this week in a wonderful subject here at the university called Thinking Tools for Wicked Problems, about the voices of experts and who we consider experts. I just had such great conversations with the students about, in the 2020s, who's the expert? 

So public trust in science I think is absolutely fascinating because COVID showed us that actually we do listen to the voices of experts. Julia Gillard basically saying COVID has shown us that we are hanging off every word from our chief medical officers and expertise matters. We trust experts. 

But, at the same time, like we were just saying, we have all of these people who have very large audiences and very, very powerful kind of machines working out there sharing completely inaccurate science. If you're someone who hasn't had the opportunity, the privilege to study science but you have an interest in it, how hard is it to work out who to trust? I'm guessing really, really hard. 

I think at one level I want to believe that public trust is high because COVID showed us how important scientific knowledge is, but on the other hand I'm hopefully not so naive as to think that actually the world has shifted massively, because there's still a lot of forces at work out there that are undermining public trust in science.

We, find ourselves in a climate crisis, we find ourselves in a biodiversity crisis, we find ourselves in great political instability. It's a very interesting time to be alive. If I were more pessimistic, which I'm not naturally, but if I'm more pessimistic, I'd say it's a pretty, pretty anxiety provoking time to be alive.

Samara Greenwood: I was just thinking when you were talking about COVID-time and everyone was turning on the news to listen to the chief medical officers. It gave them a platform, right? They didn't have to go out and search for it like you would in everyday life. When they were given that platform, they performed beautifully, in Australia at least, I would say.

Jen Martin: Yes, and so many interesting conversations around why people listened so carefully and with such great attention during COVID in a way that people haven't been listening to the people with the equivalent knowledge in the climate change space. I just find it fascinating, and I know there are people out there researching this. 

Samara Greenwood: I was wondering if you have any examples of high quality, high impact science communication initiatives that you think are worthy of more attention? 

Jen Martin: What immediately sprung to mind is an interview we did with this incredible woman, Jennifer Payne, who set up something called STEMpals, which I just absolutely love. And Jen set up STEMpals with the idea that ‘you can't be what you can't see.’ She has schools out there around Australia where grade five and six students, every student in the class, gets paired up individually with a STEM professional and then every term they exchange a letter. 

Each person, the STEM professional and the primary school student, write a letter. Not emails, you know, it's actually writing letters. So you get snail mail, where they have a conversation about, whether it's their pets or the cooking they like or the TV show, but allowing the student to see the scientist, the person in STEM, as a real human being with diverse interests who does cool science, and the STEM professional taking the time out of their busy day to sit down and write a letter and talk with this kid about what it's like to work in science.

It might seem to some people like it's quite small scale in how big of an impact it's having, but for the 3,000 kids who've been part of this, or it might be more, I know there's thousands of letters that have been shared, it's a huge impact.

There are all these kids who've been having one on one letter exchanges with someone working in STEM, and who now maybe will be what they couldn't see before. I think it's an amazing program that she's set up. 

Samara Greenwood: Oh, that sounds magical. I've got little shivers listening to that one.

I think that personal aspect, because, as you said, traditionally we have this image of science as very impersonal. To add that personal aspect, especially for children, I can see how that would mean a huge deal. 

Jen Martin: And actually getting a letter in the mail! Who does that anymore, other than a bill?

Samara Greenwood: So finally, I'm interested to know where you would like to see science communication heading in the future?

Jen Martin: I would love to see science communication as being seen as just a part of the day-to-day job of people working in science. 

I do recognize that I have to be careful there because there are some people working in science who don't want to do that. They aren't interested, don't have the skills, don't see it as a priority and I would never ever want it to be in any way mandatory that everyone working in science has to, you know, go and talk to a primary school once a year or something. That's not what I'm talking about.

But I have seen the power of communication training being part of my life. It's not an optional extra. It's not something that's rammed down your throat. It's just that if you're going to learn to be a scientist and operate in the world of STEM, then these are just skills that you're going to need. Because what job exists out there in the world now where you don't need to be able to write clearly and concisely in a way that is understandable to people? What job is there where you don't need to be able to speak, whether to two people at a time or two thousand people at a time? When do you not need to be able to listen carefully to someone else, try and understand their perspective, ask them questions to try and understand more, put yourself in their shoes, 

I just think communication is the foundation of everything. So, I'd like to see us get to the point that it's not unusual or an optional extra, it's just part of a science degree. In fact, part of all degrees, that we learn effective communication skills, partly because it's useful and partly because I think getting out of our own heads sometimes is incredibly useful.

The empathy that comes from really listening to other people and trying to recognise that other people see things very differently to us, and they're not right or wrong, they're just different, and the way we might like to say things just maybe has no relevance to them. It just doesn't resonate. It's just not going to land with them. If we can really try and think about how to change what we're giving to other people so that it's what they need rather than what we want to give. tell me I'm a very naive person, but maybe the world would be just a little bit better. 

Samara Greenwood: Definitely. Oh, that's such a great spot to finish on. I just wanted to thank you so much for joining me on the podcast, Jen. I have enjoyed it immensely. 

Jen Martin: As have I. Thanks so much for inviting me.