The BSD PDA at the 2016 National Postdoctoral Association Annual Meeting!

This past weekend the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) held their annual meeting in Grand Rapids, MI on “Supporting Postdocs, Promoting Discovery”.  Five BSD postdocs traveled to the meeting to talk about the BSD PDA Survey Committee’s 2016 National Postdoctoral Survey, Future of Research symposia with colleagues from New York and Boston, and to present posters on FOR Chicago and Outreach efforts. 

The leaders of the BSD PDA Survey Committee, Erica Westerman, Joe Pierre, and Sean McConnell facilitated the workshop, “Creating a National Postdoctoral Survey: A Way of Seeing an ‘Invisible’ Population”. First, Erica Westerman introduced the need for a national postdoc survey and shared some of the data analysis from past BSD PDA surveys to highlight the kinds of information that could be gained nationally. The BSD PDA Survey Committee has surveyed our postdoctoral population since 1999-2000.  Nancy Schwartz, Dean of Postdoctoral Affairs, gave specific examples of how the BSD PDA and Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs have utilized survey data to inform divisional and institutional postdoc policies (e.g. salary/benefits, mentor training for postdocs, and the complaint resolution process) over the past 16 years.  Joe Pierre and Sean McConnell led a discussion with the audience of postdocs, administrators, and postdoc advisors on the process of creating a national survey and ideas on how to disseminate the survey to postdocs.

Kyle Dolan, co-lead organizer of Future of Research (FOR) Chicago, worked with postdocs Rodoniki Athanasiadou (New York University, NYU Postdocs Interdisciplinary Symposium) and Sarah Mazzilli (Boston University, FOR Boston) to hold an Innovation in Action session on “Creating Policy-Focused Regional Symposia for Grassroots Advocacy”. In this session, the audience learned from regional Future of Research leaders on what goes into planning a FOR symposium. In small groups, the attendees worked on different aspects of planning a symposium on postdoc advocacy with actionable ideas to bring back to their region or home institution.

Kristina Martinez, PDA President and co-chair of the Teaching and Outreach Committee, presented the poster “Scientific Outreach: University of Chicago Lab Tour for South Side Chicago Youth,” authors were Kristina Martinez, Abby Stayart, Nate Boylan, Andrew Chidester, Cara Froyd, Laurie Risner, and Nancy Schwartz.  Kyle Dolan presented the poster on “Postdoctoral Advocacy in Action: Lessons from the Future of Research Chicago Symposium,” authors were Kyle Dolan, Rianne Ellenbroek, Erin Heckler, and Nancy Schwartz.  Kyle Dolan won the first place award for this poster!

Nancy Schwartz was a plenary speaker on the “Managing Your Postdoc: Mastering the Core Competencies” panel and moderated sessions on postdoc career development collaborations with the PDA/OGPA, UChicago GRAD and myCHOICE and with the NRMN CIC Academic Network. In addition to all of her work supporting postdocs here as Dean of Postdoctoral Affairs, Nancy Schwartz has also been involved on the national level advocating for postdocs for many years.  Nancy served on the founding NPA Advisory Board among her many other advocacy efforts to support postdocs. In recognition of all these, Nancy Schwartz received this year’s NPA Distinguished Service Award! She gave an inspiring acceptance speech thanking the nominating committee and lauding all postdocs involved in active PDAs, especially giving a “shout-out” to the Future of Research organization while reminding the audience that “we are all postdocs”.

Overall, the annual NPA meeting was a very informative weekend where the BSD PDA presented their work and shared ideas with other postdocs and PDAs from around the nation.  We brought back many new ideas that we will discuss at the next PDA Steering Committee meeting and at the Friday seminar series on April 15 in conjunction with the Public Affairs Committee who will present their experiences from the AAAS Annual meeting!

If you are interested in learning more about the annual NPA meeting, the agenda is on the NPA webpage or you can look up #NPA2016 on Twitter.  Because the University of Chicago is a sustaining NPA member, all postdocs are eligible for free affiliate membership which will give you greater access to the web resources.  You can learn more about the BSD PDA on our website or by attending our next meeting!

Can Twitter be a tool for science?

By Ann Fitzpatrick, Ph.D.

Do you tweet about science?  Would you consider using twitter to find out about the latest science?  

Science magazine has recently published an article(1) about the K-index, based on an article written by biologist Neil Hall at Liverpool University in the UK (The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists, Genome Biology, 2014 (2)).  The K-index, named after Kim Kardashian, famous for being famous, attempts to compare a scientist’s fame by ranking them according to the number of twitter followers they have, normalized by the amount of citations their scientific publications have received. 

I don’t know how I feel about this.

I think this is because I’ve always seen social media as separate to the science that I do.  Sure, it has been the first to inform me of a celebrity’s arrest/death/misdemeanor, and that quiz to find out which city I should really be living in, but I’ve never used it to follow scientists in my field or to find out how a conference I wasn’t able to attend is going…. I think this could be a mistake, but am I happy with the idea of a K-index ranking how well I’m using social media for my career? Probably not.

In the original article, Hall suggests that those with many twitter followers should be back in the lab publishing more papers and has constructed the K-index such that those with a high value have a lot of followers but [relatively] few citations.  I think this misses the important role that social media is likely to play in the future, especially when it comes to outreach and science communication.  

When you ignore the K-index and look at the scientists with the most twitter followers (The top 50 science stars of twitter), this is what you find:

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Brian Cox

Richard Dawkins

No great surprises, all known for their dedication to science communication, and the use of twitter and other social media tools only seems to be helping them.  I wouldn’t call their twitter fame unwarranted and I wonder what the point of the original article by Hall was?  As he has not provided his K-index for any particular scientist we can only speculate on who he thinks is a “Kardashian of science” with an “overblown public profile”.   

He does have a valid point, which is that often, it is the number of followers a person has rather than any insight or expertise they possess that can dictate how far reaching their influence is, or who can “shout loudest”; but doesn’t this mean we want more scientists on twitter, not less?  

The idea that taking the time to engage in the communication of science is somehow reprehensible or that focusing your career in this way makes you less of a scientist is deeply troubling.  With how few of our politicians and business leaders have the background in science needed to understand a research paper, scientists who are willing to act as advisors and go-betweens are invaluable and this shouldn’t just stop with those in power.  The communication of science to the whole population is also important; social media is likely to be a key tool in reaching as many people as possible.

So instead of pointing to the Kardashians of science and calling them outliers who need to spend more time on “real work”, it should be acknowledged that the future of science communication is vital and its superstars will have more twitter followers than you.

One last point to finish on is that both Hall’s K-index and Science’s “top 50 stars on twitter” found that females were underrepresented (as I assume other minorities are, although this was not addressed in either article).  This is hardly surprising, given that women and minorities are underrepresented both online and in science in general, but that this is cause for concern is hopefully something we can all agree on.  Making science welcoming for all is something I want to be a part of and in order to reach this goal we should be free to use every tool we can.  Social media can reach a lot of people, let’s use if for science. 

1.       1.  Jia You (2014). Who are the science stars of Twitter?, Science, 345:6203 

2.       2.  Neil Hall (2014). The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientist, Genome Biology, 15:424

How scientists can shape policy: A lesson from California

By Ann Fitzpatrick, Ph.D.

When asked about issues where science and politics intersect, few scientists I have met don’t have a view to share. But when it comes to making policy on scientific issues, how is the science communicated?  Can politicians be expected to read the latest publications or do scientists have to take the lead in turning scientific language into that which can be used for science policy?

Whether it be drug classification or creationism taught in schools, there are cases where some scientists feel like the government has got it wrong, so it was nice to read a recent Nature news article highlighting a successful policy collaboration between the California government and Bay Areaclimate scientists. (1) 

After publishing an article review in Nature (2) warning of major destabilization of the biosphere, Berkeley paleoecologist Dr. Anthony Barnosky was contacted by California governor Jerry Brown.  This led Barnosky and his co-author and wife, Dr. Elizabeth Hadly of Stanford, into science policy for the first time. 

Brown asked Barnosky and Hadly to produce a consensus statement on climate change that could be used in political circles.  Often, consensus statements are drawn up by a large number of scientists, and if the scientists you know are anything like the scientists I know, getting many of them to agree on cutting-edge research can be tricky, especially in written form.  This can mean that only well-trodden ground gets included and more controversial (although potentially valid) arguments are left out.  

The report cited 126 studies and it took 21 drafts s to remove all of the scientific language. After all this, the part that the politicians were drawn to, the idea of a “tipping point” for Earth, was the very part that was a sticking point for some scientists, causing some researchers to refuse to sign.  It’s a fine line you have to walk between vital communication of the facts and advocating particular policies.  The consensus statement seems to have managed this as evident by the 3,300 signatures in its support.

The scientific argument included in the report led to a series of environmental policy agreements between California and state governments in the Pacific region, as well as a pact with China to cut production of greenhouse gases. Barnosky and Hadly’s report has now made its way to 41 countries and looks to be a force shaping policy on climate change for years to come. 

Speaking to Nature, Barnosky said the biggest lesson he has learnt is that, “a scientist’s job isn’t over once a paper is published,” while Hadly went as far as saying that, “the consensus statement is more valuable than anything else I’ve done in my career”.  Barnosky and Hadly also admitted that it monopolized their time for a year and as taking a year off isn’t an option for a lot of researchers, especially early in their career, how should we be getting involved in science policy? 

To begin with, my goal is small, just to keep up to date with science policy news; if I’m aware of what is currently being debated, I’m far more likely to want to get involved!  Organizations like ScienceDebate, which encourages politicians to address science issues while on the campaign trail, and Union of Concerned Scientists, which advocates practical solutions to the planet’s pressing problems, will be my starting point, and being a member of AAAS means I can get weekly emails about science policy, which I promise to read.  This being an election year makes it a great time to ask politicians their views on scientific issues; maybe they would welcome a connection with scientists at the University of Chicago.  The way forward may not be completely clear and I’m not sure how much time I can give, but I care and part of why I do science is to make a difference, no matter how small.  Barnosky and Hadly have proved it is possible.  I invite you to join me.

Ann Fitzpatrick is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Chemistry.

1. V. Gewin (2014). Science and politics: Hello, governor. Nature 511: 402-404.

2. A.D. Barnosky et al. (2012). Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere. Nature 486: 52-58.

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AAAS Annual Conference: An Inspiring Experience for our Postdocs

By: Laurie Risner, PhD, Postdoctoral Affairs Administrator

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, annual conference was held in Chicago last month.  This was an excellent opportunity for BSD postdocs to attend an international conference with wide-spread scientific interest and a variety of programming in our own hometown.  Thanks to an effort by the PDA to spread the word about this event, and generous support from the Dean of the Biological Sciences Division, Dr. Polonsky, over twenty postdocs were able to attend.  The BSD Postdoc Office was also represented at the AAAS conference with Dr. Nancy Schwartz and myself attending.

Beth Russell, a postdoctoral scholar in Surgery and co-chair of the Public Affairs subcommittee of the Postdoctoral Association, thought of the idea to request special funding from the Dean, so that a few postdocs could take advantage of the opportunity to attend the AAAS conference during a year that it was being held in Chicago.  Dean Polonsky generously offered to provide funding for ten BSD postdocs’ registration, so that we could receive the discounted group rate.  

I organized a lottery in which postdoc scholars and fellows from across the BSD could submit their names to receive funded registration at the conference.  Thirty-seven postdocs submitted their names in the lottery, which is over 10% of the postdoc population.  Ten grateful postdocs were selected in the lottery and received the group rate.  In addition, myself and more than twelve UC postdocs and research professionals were selected to be poster judges for the AAAS student poster competition and were honored with an very low registration rate.  In the end our group from the BSD came to at least 25 people!  

In addition to our many poster judges for the student session, several postdocs also presented posters of their own research at the conference.  Postdoc scholar Sunhwan Jo commented, “I was able to connect with several poster presenters, including undergraduate researchers and postdocs.  I could see their passion and it was great talking to them.”  Postdoc Santosh Kumar added, “I was able to present my research project to an out-of-field audience, where I was given ideas to expand my work. I am extremely grateful that I was given this great opportunity to participate and attend the AAAS Conference.”

The theme of this year’s AAAS meeting was “Meeting Global Challenges: Discovery and Innovation.” The conference consisted of career development workshops, scientific symposia, plenary lectures, poster sessions, a large exhibit hall, a family science day open to the public, and many special events.  I especially enjoyed the plenary talks.  Nobel Laureate and former US Secretary of Energy, Dr Steven Chu, discussed the energy crisis in our country and offered promise for the future.  Alan Alda, former actor turned science advocate and communicator, offered us great reason and tips to communicate science to the public.  In addition, having the chance to talk to students interested in science and to attend career development workshops made the AAAS conference a very positive and inspiring experience.  Postdoc Rebecca Pompano reflected on the conference, “I feel so fortunate that I had the opportunity to attend the AAAS meeting this year.  AAAS is unlike most other conferences, in that does not focus on the details of the science arising out of a particular area of study.  Instead, it focuses on the impact that scientific research can have on society, and on ways that scientists can get make sure that their messages are heard by the public and the policy makers.  It is exciting to feel be reminded of how important our work can be and what impact it can have on the lives of real people.”  

The career development workshops were especially useful and appealing to our postdocs.  A recurrent theme at the career workshops and many other AAAS events was “communication skills.”  From talking to politicians, to using LinkedIn and social media, to understanding how to use improvisation as a tool in communicating science to the public, it was clear that scientists need to enhance their communication and share their stories about their research and life as a scientist with the rest of the world.   Postdoc Natasha Wadlington commented on the communication sessions: “Receiving tips on how to use social media, talking with the press, and even the improvisation session to help connect with your audience was such an invaluable learning experience. I am currently utilizing the methods that I learned, not only for my own career, but I am also passing down some of the information to colleagues and students in our lab.”

Overall, our group had a very positive and inspiring time at AAAS.  Here are some final quotes from our postdocs who attended the conference:

“I was thrilled by the convergence of multiple topics in all fields of science, many unfamiliar to me. It was an important reminder of how urgent global awareness is for a scientist. I mostly focused in all science communication events and workshops and had an extremely valuable experience closely interacting with several professionals in that field. Thank you for this great opportunity to be a better scientist and a better communicator!”

Ana Cristina Gomes, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow

“The greatest part about AAAS was the diversity of the presentations and the professionals there. I attended meetings covering federal funding of basic research, entrepreneurship, and advances in big data for health sciences. Additionally, there were fantastic networking opportunities there:  I talked with Congressman Randy Hultgren and Nobel Laureate Dr. Martin Chaulfie in addition to many other leaders in academic and private sciences. These connections will be invaluable for my career to come. I would highly recommend attending the AAAS to any graduate or postdoctoral scientists.”   

Sean W. Fanning, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow

“I particularly enjoyed the many career development workshops offered during the meeting, and I am quite confident that new skills I have learned in writing, presenting, and communication, will no doubt help me with my future career path. This meeting has instilled me a desire to pursue some form of scientific outreach, and I will continue think of ways in which my scientific training and background can help and influence the community.” 

Heather Titley, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow

“While I have been fortunate to have had many positive experiences throughout my tenure at UChicago, attending the 2014 AAAS meeting was one of the most positive experiences of my scientific career… Many times as post docs, we are at the bench with our “nose stuck in the data” and we are almost too close to our own studies to see the forest through the trees. It was very refreshing and invigorating to attend the AAAS annual meeting to get back up to the 30,000-foot level to get an overall survey of where we stand as scientists in society as a whole. It is an experience I won’t soon forget, and I would like to thank Dean Polonsky for the opportunity to attend the AAAS meeting.”    

Vanessa Leone, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar

Read full reflections from the postdocs here.

Review of the Alan Alda Lecture - "Helping the Public Get Beyond a Blind Date with Science”

by: Vineeth Varanasi, PhD, PDA steering committee member

On Friday, September 26^th, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics hosted a lecture by Alan Alda on communicating science, entitled "Helping the Public Get Beyond a Blind Date with Science”.  The idea behind the lecture and the associated workshop was to enable and encourage scientists to communicate clearly and succinctly with the public.

Communication

The Merriam-Webster definition of the word Communication merits a revisit, since I think it conveys to a large extent the essence of the lecture.

Communication: The act or process of using words, sounds, signs, or behaviors to express or exchange information or to express your ideas, thoughts, feelings to someone else.

It is the meaningful exchange of information between two or a group of living creatures.

Alan Alda

Why Alan Alda?  Isn’t he the actor from West Wing, the Woody Alan movies or M.A.S.H?  What is an actor doing preaching scientific communication?  These were some of the questions overheard in the audience and I am sure some of the readers have the same questions!  Well, besides being a fantastic actor, Alan Alda hosted “Scientific American Frontiers” on PBS from 1993-2005.  The premise of the show is that Alan Alda talks to scientists from various disciplines and tries to understand their work from the perspective of an informed layperson.  Stemming from his experiences talking to scientists over the years hosting the show, he became “convinced that many researchers have wonderful stories to tell, but some need help in telling them.”  A result of this effort is the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.  Here’s some of what Alda had to say.

Tell a story, with passion.

Start with a simple take home message that you want to convey to the audience. Then tell a story and engage the audience instead of narrating a bunch of facts or data. Alda also highlighted that scientists are the most passionate people that he has met. They are not the most highly paid or the most famous people in the world, but survive on a deep passion for their chosen field of study. However, this passion does not come forth when we present our work. Alda suggests it is OK to project some passion when presenting your work. If you were thrilled to get a result, share the excitement with the audience. If a result crushed you, it is OK to admit that it was unexpected or upsetting. The idea is to make a personal connection and get the audience involved in your “Story”. In the words of Don Hewitt, the creator of 60 minutes, the secret behind a good program (and good communication), is "It's four words every child knows: Tell me a story." The key to good communication is to tell a story and keep it simple.

Improv

In order to keep an audience engaged, the speaker has to be “spontaneous” to tailor the message in keeping with the expectations and level of knowledge of the audience.  This also comes in handy in collecting oneself after a challenging question from the audience or other interruptions.  Alda suggests Improv as a tool to increase spontaneity.  Improv or improvisational theater is a form of Performance Theater where most of the script is created at the moment it is performed.  An example of this would be the television show “Whose Line is it Anyway?”  Alda runs courses in improv for scientists at the Alda Center, with promising results that he shared with the audience in before and after testimonials.

Curse of Knowledge

This brings us to what I thought was the highlight of the seminar. Alda argues that the main hurdle to effective scientific communication is the “Curse of knowledge”.  Coined by film and TV composer Robin Hogarth, the curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias because of which better-informed people find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed people.  In other words, we forget what it was like before we gained all the knowledge that we now have.  This cognitive gap not only appears between scientists and lay people, but also between scientists from different disciplines.  Alda ran a simple experiment to demonstrate this.  He asked an audience member to drum the words of a song without the tune.  Most of the audience failed to recognize the song based on the beats of the words, without the tune.  Due to the curse of knowledge, the presenter has the complete song with both the tune and the words in their head, but end up drumming out the words without a tune.  Therefore the message is lost on most of the audience.

Alan Alda touched on some really interesting points on scientific communication during his lecture.  The Kavli institute at the University of Chicago has just started a collaborative program with the Alan Alda Center, raising hope that there will be more such lectures and workshops in the not so distant future.