Monthly Archives: August 2019

The Missing Link for STEMM Diversity

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Building bridges and dissolving boundaries in STEMM

– Dr Astha Singh and Akanksha Tiwary

With a quarter of its population born overseas, Australia is culturally and linguistically diverse. Inclusion and diversity are core of the identity and spirit of Australian society and its contemporary culture. However, this social diversity is not reflected in the composition of the country’s STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) workforce, which is currently still predominately the male gender. For a seemingly egalitarian nation, Australia’s STEM workforce statistics are starkly contrasting.

Researchers and innovators from different backgrounds including (but not limited to) race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, age, and abilities have contributed to numerous scientific and technological breakthroughs. Their distinctive backgrounds shape how they tend to perceive and resolve issues at the institutional, local, national, or international level. Thus, working in an environment laced with gender, cognitive, ethnic, and experiential diversity involves engaging with different perspectives that help develop a holistic understanding crucial for driving innovation. To create a sustainable shape the STEM-led future of Australia, its diverse workforce needs to be leveraged.

Storytelling as a tool

Astha Singh migrated to Australia for her PhD research and found that the male to female ratio was quite skewed within the faculty. She also found that it was rather challenging for international students coming from a different cultural and non-English speaking backgrounds to conduct high-quality research. This inspired Astha to continuously support and empower peers and colleagues especially from diverse backgrounds and to advocate for diversity in STEMM.

During the tenth national conference of the Australian Science Communicators (ASC 2018), an attempt was made to understand the existing impediments to full inclusion in STEMM fields. Rather than delving on graphs and statistics, the session took a unique turn, wherein the speakers narrated their unique and original stories. While graphs and statistics can be alarming, at times, it is through real-life stories that actions of lasting change are initiated.

The panellists, or rather the storytellers for this session were: Devanshi Seth, Principal Scientist, RPA Hospital and Clinical Associate Professor, Centenary Institute, University of Sydney; Dr Noushin Nasiri, Lecturer at School of Engineering, Macquarie University; Alfonso Ballestas-Barrientos, PhD Candidate, Laboratory of Advanced Catalysis for Sustainability, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney and Dr Manoj Gupta, Research Fellow, Climate Change Cluster, University of Technology, Sydney.

Finding the missing link

The speakers recounted their moments of inspiration, adversity, resilience, and of lasting transformation that helped them establish their personal and professional lives thousands of kilometres away from home. From a particle in Brownian motion, Devanshi Seth, in her own words, bloomed into a fruit-laden tree, making the most of her academic and industrial randomness through “Franklin Women”. Now, comfortable in standing out, she urged the audience to make the most of their varied experiences by helping ease the socio-cultural transition of their colleagues. Devanshi is an active promoter of women in science and was the founding Chair of Gender Equity at Centenary and is on the Peer Advisory Committee for Franklin Women.

Noushin’s  journey from a small city near the Caspian Sea in Iran taught her the importance of cultivating inclusion as a basic human right in STEMM circles. She continues to play her part in mingling with the Australian culture, urges colleagues to do the same and no let the self-perception dictate the direction of this journey. Noushin and Devanshi’s stories revealed that brewing a strong work culture of humbleness and empathy will help engrave diversity – at all levels – in STEMM.

Alfonso Ballestas-Barrientos, travelled all the way from the Americas to Down-Under for his love for chemistry. Alfonso just as all other Venezuelans struggled to express his academic views that could be clearly understood by his audience. Living across a few oceans from his family, Alfonso had faced adversities on a personal level that had impacted his ability to excel at his work and learned a few life lessons that focussed on inclusion. In Alfonso’s words, “Understanding of one’s own culture and the culture of others with openness and flexibility will help make bridges between individuals, groups and nations”.

Additional speaker and Climate Change Cluster researcher from UTS Manoj Gupta’ s story described that culture-induced gender biases still dominate career choices across the globe. Women and underrepresented groups are associated with only certain roles. Socio-economic constraints and privileges significantly influence career choices. Pay disparity still exists amongst STEMM fields, creating the issue of financial stability and thus luring youngsters from developing nations to move from pure sciences towards engineering and technology roles.

Cultivating a culture of acceptance and respect

For both the native and non-native audience, the impact of language barriers and cultural differences on an individual’s social and professional identification became apparent. Through each of the stories, the importance of support groups and mentoring networks  in creating a welcoming environment was highlighted. This conversation prompted Jackie Randles (Manager, Inspiring Australia, the national STEMM engagement strategy) to comment “We are not just scientists; we are people. While we often talk about our work, it’s time we talk more often about our stories.”

Viewing these stories with an external greater perspective we need to consider how accepting we are of these diverse pools of talent in our STEMM societies and what steps are we taking to really implement diversity and inclusion. What steps are we taking to build a truly diverse professional world in the STEMM domain is a question to ponder deeply upon. Diversity and inclusion should not just be a topic to be ticked off in the professional environment at the Human Resources level but should be a conversation that keeps going on in a more personable and human level. Diversity and inclusiveness encompass acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and celebrating what makes us different. In the digital era of dissolving boundaries, let’s openly listen to each other, and as Noushin puts it, “be prepared to be amazed!”

References:
http://2018conf.asc.asn.au/the-missing-link-for-stem-diversity/
https://www.science.org.au/files/userfiles/support/reports-and-plans/2015/innovation-requires-global-engagement.pdf
https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/g/files/net3906/f/2018-10/performance-review-of-the-australian-innovation-science-and-research-system-isa.pdf
https://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/Chapter-2-Demographics.pdf
https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/reports-and-publications/
https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/STA-Women-in-STEM-Decadal-Plan-Submission.pdf

ASC2020 Call for Papers

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ASC2020 Call for Papers and Sessions

We are delighted to invite you to get your thinking caps on! Expressions of interest for inclusion in the ASC2020 conference program due 30 September 2019.

The theme for ASC2020 is “Priorities, Policies and Publics for human survival” with streams such as environmental and sustainability communication, impact communication, and more.

We are keen to see a wide and varied program for 2020. Here are some examples of possible approaches to the conference themes to get you started:

Priorities

  • • What is the role of science communication in solving the ‘wicked problems’ we face (e.g climate change or mass extinctions)
  • • Where does science fit in the current media climate, fake news, etc.?

Policies

  • • Is science communication an effective tool for behaviour change?
  • • Communicating in large, multi-stakeholder projects
  • • Science communication for social, environmental, or health impacts

Publics

  • • Engaging audiences through new technologies
  • • Transforming relations between science research and communication practice
  • • Widening participation in scientific research with new and diverse audiences

Types of submissions we will accept for ASC2020 include:

  • • Professional Development workshops
  • • Production of sessions and social activities (session and social proposals)
  • • Individual or small group presentations (see suggested formats below)
  • • Research papers

Types of sessions you may be interested in submitting:

  • • Practice insights: speakers describe, demonstrate and/or evaluate specific science communication practices.
  • • Provocations: short talks where speakers present and explore a dilemma in science communication theory or practice.
  • • Work in progress: speakers present work in progress on research or practice, including ideas under development or that have yet to be implemented.
  • • Problems and Solutions clinic: producing a session to allow participants to workshop solutions to the thorny issues they’re facing.
  • • Demonstrations: presenting innovative science communication practices with a commentary on their application and effectiveness.
  • • Workshop: allowing participants to actively engage in exploring a project or concept in science communication.

Please don’t hesitate to contact program.committee@asc.asn.au with questions and/or to discuss your ideas for ASC2020. All submissions are due 30 September 2019 online (links at http://asc2020.asc.asn.au)

We look forward to an incredible array of talent and good things for this Eleventh National Conference of the Australian Science Communicators.

 

 

Stephen Pincock; NSW ASC Committee Interview

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  • Why did you choose to study science?

In the early years of high school, I developed a vague idea that I wanted to be “a medical researcher”. I loved the idea of working in a lab, helping find new treatments. On the other hand, I was also very keen on literature and writing, so my subject choices ended up being split evenly between sciences and humanities. I stuck to my guns at university and studied microbiology and immunology, although by the end of the undergraduate degree I realised that the ideas were much more interesting to me than the physical reality of working in a lab. So I quickly switched to science journalism — finding a way to be in the right place at the right time when a job at Today’s Life Science came up.    

  • Looking back now, what has been the best part of your career in SciComm?

I’ve really enjoyed the variety of opportunies I’ve had as a science journalist — from feature writing to banging out daily news. Some of my favourite years were those I spent as a science columnist for the Financial Times’ weekend magazine. My job each week was to write a 900-word column that would be interesting to the readers of the FT. I had complete liberty to select topics I thought were interesting, and took full opportunity to meet and interview all sorts of amazing people. As part of that job I interviewed Jane Goodall on two different occasions several years apart and found her to be utterly inspiring. 


  • Where has your career led you?

There are lots of ways to answer that question, but I’ll go for the literal interpretation! I started my career in a fairly modest office in Chippendale, at a time when we only had access to the internet on one machine in the office, then moved to London and New York for a decade or so, before returning to Sydney where I now work for Springer Nature. I now lead a team of people in 7 different countries and travel fairly often to Japan, China, Egypt, the UK and the US.  


  • What excites you most about your work?

I’ve done my fair share of speaking truth to power, and reporting things people wanted to keep secret, but at my heart the best thing about the job of being a science journalist is talking to really interesting people about the amazing things they’re discovering, and finding a way to articulate that wonder on the page/screen.


  • What advice do you have for anyone considering a career in SciComm?

I don’t have any big revelations, but my experience as a freelance journalist for about a decade was that it was much easier to make a living from news writing than feature writing. Features are hard to sell and slow to produce, while if you can get a good line into an organisation that needs science news then they’re always going to need more!

ASC-VIC Report: Storytelling for Science Communicators

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The Victorian branch of Australian Science Communicators recently enjoyed a storytelling for science communicators workshop at 100 Story Building.

To kick-off the evening, several attendees met at Littlefoot, a conveniently located establishment within stumbling distance of the 100 Story Building. We snacked on edamame and chips, baba ghanoush and a LOT of crumbed cauliflower! Sitting at a round table, we shared our meals and got to both try something new and meet someone new, which was as delicious as it was interesting.

The workshop was facilitated by an old friend of ASC-VIC – the very talented Ben McKenzie. Ben is a comedian by trade which made him well-suited to the relaxed, informal, somewhat adult evening. And by adult, I mean appropriate, scientific content. Ahh biology.

Ben began by showing us around the building. 100 Story Building is a centre for young writers based in Footscray, but where the 100th story is at ground-level and the other 99 levels are below ground. The top-floor/ground-floor room was like a classic primary school classroom/cosy kitchen combo, but with additional plants growing through a trapdoor and partying penguins a couple of floors below. We were an exquisite mix of clientele – a children’s author, children’s educators, people from film and tv, and myriad other communicators with a scientific bent.

Aside from being a comedian, Ben is also a writer (and a fantastic one at that!). So naturally, the first thing he had us do was draw a picture…

We arbitrarily picked a noun to draw and then the person next to us set about trying to guess the noun in some kind of strange hangman/Guess Who game. I would say that we had varying degrees of success but I’m not sure that’s true. I can’t speak for the others, but I know that myself and old friend and former colleague Krys performed particularly badly at both the drawing and the guessing.

Top Storytelling Tip #1: Tell someone your story and get them to tell it back to you – you’ll be able to see what you missed out!

Before we embarrassed ourselves too much, we moved on to something more sci-comm specific. Why do we do it? Science communication, that is. Surprisingly, nobody answered that it was just because they weren’t any good at the guitar or that they knew how to make millions running school incursions. The answers ranged from the simple “I love science” to the more complex and laudable, “To encourage people to invest in science and preserve endangered species”.

The best way to tell a story? In three parts – the beginning, the middle and the end. Seems obvious, doesn’t it. But only once you hear it. That’s what we all went to school for and yet somehow in the last twenty years (obviously only a few years for myself, ahem…) we lost sight of it. Or maybe we just thought that only applied to fiction? So we applied it to our ideas for scientific stories. It works! Totes McGoats.

Top Storytelling Tip #2: The beginning, middle and end of your story do not have to be in chronological order! Oooooh. Messing with our sciencey linear brains!

Our stories by this stage were beginning to take shape! Not a moment too soon, we attempted to identify our audience. Now this for me was the really, really important part of the evening. I mean, I’d been identifying audiences since you were in short pants, but here’s the vital part: Who are they really? They might be 18-30 and live in Footscray, but who are they really? Do they go to the pub at the weekends? Do they think that’s a good idea? Do they put orange juice on their cornflakes? Do they think that’s a good idea?! What are their hopes and dreams, fears and dislikes? Not just a boyfriend and a new car, but their existential crises, their horrible uncle and that thing they do in their sleep that stops them from closing their eyes on planes.

Top Storytelling Tip #3: Describe what your characters are doing instead of using an adjective. Don’t say they are frustrated, tell us they are pacing, sighing, pulling at their clothes…

Most of us had never delved so deeply into the intricate world of science storytelling. For some, our writing had consisted of science with less jargon and shorter words. But now our science shone with the brightness of a narrative, glistened with the journey of a character, and brimmed with the pride of a author that has a beginning, a middle and an end. Our stories will all be better quality than they would have been without Ben’s clever and careful coaching.

The event was funded by an event grant from Australian Science Communicators. ASC-VIC thanks the national body for so generously enabling this event.

ASC-VIC President Lynette Plenderleith with 100 Story Building’s Ben McKenzie