#MySciComm: Rose Hendricks (of ComSciCon!) on Harnessing Insights from Psychology for SciComm

This week, Rose Hendricks, a member of the ComSciCon Leadership Team, responds to the #MySciComm questions!

Right now, we are recruiting, with ComSciCon and the ESA Student Section, for student co-organizers to lead a ComSciCon workshop at #ESA2018! Please contact the ESA Student section directly if you want to co-organize and lead the #ESA2018 ComSciCon!

Photo courtesy of the author

Rose is a PhD Candidate in Cognitive Science at UC San Diego. She researches how the language we use shapes the way we think, which has dovetailed with her interest in scicomm. As a member of the ComSciCon leadership team and founder of the local ComSciCon workshop in San Diego, she leads teams of graduate students in developing scicomm workshops for other graduate students. Connect with her @RoHendricks and on her website.

The #MySciComm series features a host of SciComm professionals. We’re looking for more contributors, so please get in touch if you’d like to write a post!

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Okay, Rose…

1) How did you get into the kind of SciComm that you do?

During my last year of high school, I opted not to take a science class.

By that point, I had made up my mind: science was not for me. My science teachers and textbooks had been mostly unrelatable and intimidating. Thus, I used the little freedom I had as a high school student to fill my schedule with foreign language and music theory courses.

But then as an undergraduate at Vassar College, I decided to try a cognitive science (Cog Sci) course. I found humans relatable, so I reasoned that a course focused on how we think might be ok. It was more than ok.

Cog Sci was my gateway to a deep curiosity in science.

Not only did that course propel me to want to learn more, but it made me want to share what I learn.

As an undergraduate, I became increasingly captivated by Cog Sci. I loved my small seminar classes in which we discussed topics like whether a brain cut off from a body, isolated in a vat, could possibly “think.” In one class, I worked with classmates to program a robot to exhibit cat-like behaviors in order to chase down another team’s mouse-like robot. In another, we designed an experiment on processing emotional sounds and collected electroencephalography (EEG) data – changes in electrical activity at the scalp – to test our hypotheses. I was also challenged to develop my own experiment in my final year. I explored whether a language’s grammatical gender (like the ‘la’ vs. ‘el’ distinction in Spanish) shapes how people think of everyday objects. After experiences like these, I needed to continue learning about the human mind. So, I began to search for the graduate program that would be right for me.

I was thrilled to discover the UC San Diego’s Cogntive Science department that truly embraces interdisciplinary studies of the mind and cognition. I was even more thrilled when I was accepted into the program. As a PhD student, my research has been focused on understanding the relationship between metaphors in language and how we perceive and reason about the world. My driving questions are: Does learning a new system of metaphors create new ways of thinking? Do the metaphors in your native language shape the way you see the world?

Shortly before starting grad school, I started a blog called WhatsInABrain, and this blog has remained an outlet for me to explore ideas in Cog Sci and about academia and grad school more generally. My blog has driven me to communicate in a way that would be interesting to diverse audiences. Once in a while, I go through a spell where I’m sure that no one’s reading and that my work is junk, but I feel compelled to keep blogging, especially during these ruts, because consistent blogging has made me a better reader, writer, and thinker.

In those earliest years of grad school, I also sought out additional opportunities to practice communicating science, like joining a collaborative neuroscience blog (NeuWriteSD), and applying to ComSciCon.

Perhaps the greatest catalyst was my acceptance to ComSciCon, a national science communication workshop designed by grad students, for grad students.

I learned about ComSciCon by keeping an eye on #scicomm updates on Twitter. I was intrigued by the opportunity to attend this free(!!) workshop because I had started to realize how gratifying it is to communicate about Cog Sci and connect with other science communicators. But I knew I still had so much to learn. I also knew that it’s challenging to be accepted to ComSciCon – the workshop typically receives about 1,000 applications for the 50 available spots. The application was especially challenging because it limited responses to 500 characters (about 100 words). I iterated a few times on my application, but I still didn’t feel like my short responses packed the punch I wanted them to. On a whim just before I submitted, I converted one of my responses into a series of limericks (my favorite type of poem).

I wrote things like:

My blog is WhatsInABrain
It’s anything but arcane
Language and mind
Are topics, you’ll find,
That for this blog, are entirely germane.

Although I worried that the application reviewers might find my limericks ridiculous, I was accepted to ComSciCon. Participating in ComSciCon included three full days of hearing from inspiring speakers, often on topics I hadn’t thought much about. I met brilliant and interesting peers with similar interests in scicomm, and I practiced my writing and speaking skills intensively.

Since attending the national workshop in 2015 I’ve been compelled to share what I’ve learned about communicating science with others. I know that many people want to become better communicators, so they’re eager to hear about new insights and strategies.

For example, a faculty member in my department approached me with a proposal to co-teach an undergraduate seminar on science blogging. In our course, many students experienced their first taste of scicomm. The students wrote informative and entertaining pieces on topics like the neuroscience of creativity, how we process words like pus or shard, and what it’s like to be a research assistant. In a later course that I taught on research methods, I used blogging as a way for students to share what they had learned and for me to assess their learning. The students in this class created a treasure trove of cognitive science blog posts.

I’ve also remained involved in ComSciCon since participating as an attendee. I helped lead the national workshop twice, and I founded the local ComSciCon workshop in San Diego. My scicomm teaching and organizing experiences have helped me connect with science communicators across many fields with varied backgrounds. I’ve had behind-the-scenes access to science communication training, which has allowed me to observe good (and sometimes not-so-good) science communications.

My Cog Sci background has revealed to me insights about how humans perceive new information, learn, and make decisions – insights that can be harnessed for better scicomm.

For example, we know that cognitive biases are inevitable. If we hold a particular belief (for example, that a God created all humans exactly as they are today), and then we encounter information that challenges that belief (like that scientists have abundant evidence for evolution), we feel uncomfortable. The experience of trying to simultaneously hold competing ideas in mind is called cognitive dissonance. And receiving more information about evolution doesn’t eliminate the dissonance; we still feel the tension. We often hear (and assert) that communicators must acknowledge biases like these, and focus on their audience’s values so they can communicate science in a way that doesn’t threaten people’s core beliefs, values, or identities.

The growing field that studies the science of science communication reflects an increasing appreciation for grounding research on scicomm in psychology. I’m incredibly excited about this movement toward more evidence-based and human-centric scicomm. In my future research, and work with ComSciCon, I aim to contribute to this productive shift in the way we think about science communication.

2) What are your top 3 SciComm tips and/or resources?

1. Find your people.

I’m an introvert, and one of my greatest joys comes from blogging on a weekend morning at home alone, tea in hand. It’s great to know that about myself, and I do indulge in these solo writing sessions. But it’s also important for me to interact with people I share scicomm goals and values with for a sense of community and to continue improving on my scicomm. I first found this group in the NeuWrite team, and my scicomm circle grew as I met inspiring and brilliant communicators through ComSciCon. Sometimes your motivation will wane, or you’ll need a second opinion on your work, or you’ll be stuck on a project, and you’ll need your team. Follow the urge, and make connections.

2. Seek feedback and iterate.

Your first drafts of any scicomm project are not going to be perfect. The most efficient way to produce a good quantity of high-quality work is to just keep doing it. Once you’ve found your scicomm people, use each other as sounding boards, revise, and get that work out into the world. Of course you should set standards for your science communication, but perfectionism will get in your way.

3. Amplify others.

Most of the science we learn on a daily basis is thanks to other people — thanks to great science communicators whose work comes across our Twitter feed, or whose book we pick up, or whose talk we catch at a local bar. When you like someone’s scicomm, tell them, and — even better — tell your own social network. Amplifying good scicomm helps science communicators expand their audiences and helps your own network find good scicomm.