Bridging the Science-Public Gap: Creating Elevator Pitches and Social Media Engagement
Half Day Workshop for scientists (3.5 hours)
March 22 @ 2:00 PM - 5:30 PM ET (note your timezone)
This half-day virtual workshop (3.5 hours) is intended for students, post-docs, faculty, and researchers working both in academia and industry. The workshop is intended to give scientists tools to engage the public with their research. We know that having a memorable and compelling "elevator pitch" is important; yet most of us struggle to do it well. When it comes to sharing about our research, we find ourselves using too much jargon, giving too much detail for our audience, and not giving enough memorable examples to really compel the listener. In the first session, we will teach you how to develop a focused, clear, compelling, and memorable elevator pitch (and you'll walk away with a strategy for creating new elevator pitches in the future). In the second session of the workshop, renowned science communicator Dr. David Shiffman will share insider secrets to using social media as a platform to talk about your research (and why everyone should be doing it!) Read below for more details on each session and about the workshop instructors.
Tiered Pricing
Enrollment is on a tiered pricing scale. The value of this training is $250. However, we know that people have differing abilities to pay at that level. We have created a pricing scale to allow for financial support for students, faculty, and post-docs to enroll in this training. You may enroll at the level that describes your current situation by clicking on the options below.
We offer a few fellowship seats for each workshop/training. If you would like to apply for a fee-waived fellowship, you can apply here.
DESCRIPTION OF THE TRAINING
Session 1: The art of the elevator pitch (2 hours)
March 22 @ 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET (note your timezone)
The elevator pitch. We talk about it often. We say it is important for networking and sharing our research. And yet when it comes to actually doing it, we find ourselves using jargon, spending too much time on details that aren’t important, or not giving the right context for our audience. The elevator pitch is, at its core, a story that should be compelling, focused, and clear. This workshop is intended to guide you step by step through building you own compelling, clear, and focused elevator pitch—specifically around your research—and then honing it to 90 seconds. By the end of the session, you will have a draft of a 90-second elevator pitch and 1-2 short anecdotes that you can use to illustrate your research. We will focus on elevator pitches for the general public audience; however, we will give you a method for creating an elevator pitch for any audience during this session. The session is instructed by Dr. Lisa Cantrell-- a former science journalist-- and Dr. Tamara Spence-- a former neurotech industry leader who has spent years bridging the gap between scientists and the public.
Session 2: How to use online tools for public science engagement, and why you should! (1.5 Hours)
March 22 @ 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM ET (note your timezone)
Dr. David Shiffman is one of the most-followed scientists in the world on social media, with an audience of over 76,000 followers on X (formerly known as Twitter) @whysharksmatter. He is an expert in using social media to educate the public on scientific findings, to get them to care about research, and to rally them to engage with it in meaningful ways. Social media-- whether we love it or hate it-- arguably is the most direct methods for scientists to share research with the public. How do we use it to bridge the gap between our research and the public's understanding of scientific findings? Dr. Shiffman will teach you basic principles as well as advanced tips and tricks of online public science engagement. He has trained over 1,000 early career scientists how to use social media tools to communicate their science, and in this session he'll share his secrets with us as well as the reasons we should all be leveraging social media for public outreach.
About the Facilitators
Dr. David Shiffman is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist and award-winning public science educator. He holds a PhD from the University of Miami. His work sits at the intersection of shark ecology, marine conservation, and policy. He is an expert in public science engagment having done over 200 interviews about his research with the media, and his work has been featured in Nature, Science, National Geographic, and on NPR. Dr. Shiffman is one of the most followed scientists in the world on social media with over 76,000 followers on X (formerly known as Twitter) and as a renowned science communicator he has written for the Washington Post, Scientific American, and Slate. He is the author of the book Why Sharks Matter. Find out more about him on his website at davidshiffmancv.com or follow him @WhySharksMatter.
Dr. Tamara Spence is a neuroscientist who received her PhD from Wake Forest University in 2014. She spent nearly a decade working at a cutting-edge market-leading neurotech company where she trained researchers across the US and Europe. During her time in industry, Dr. Spence saw the importance of using narrative principles when communicating about science. She often watched her colleagues and other researchers struggle to explain their research which, she felt, led to missed opportunities for collaboration and innovation in their laboratories. After leaving industry in 2023, she joined Capital Storytelling, an organization that trains individuals in principles of storytelling, where she has helped to train hundreds of individuals in storytelling and communication. Later that year she joined Stories of Science to help researchers find clear, compelling ways to talk about their science.
Dr. Lisa Cantrell holds a PhD in psychology and is an associate professor at Sacramento State. She has spent over a decade in scientific research and has worked in science journalism, writing and producing stories for KQED in San Francisco, Spectrum in New York, and for her own science podcast featured in Science Magazine, An InExact Science. She has worked with scientists who have shared their research through Nat Geo, Discovery, and the Smithsonian. Cantrell is the founder and executive director of Capital Storytelling—a non-profit in Sacramento with the mission of connecting people through narrative— and the founding consultant at Stories of Science. She regularly consults for businesses, non-profits, and government agencies across the U.S. You can find out more at her website: lisamcantrell.com
