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Challenges abound for a scientist engaged in active research. Funding is always stressful, ensuring successful experiments a notable concern, while balancing students and proper mentoring. Then of course: lab safety, novelty of your work, and deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. At the end of the day, no matter the field of science, there is no handbook for the management of this litany of anxiety-inducers and a foremost tenet of research: science communication.<\/p>\n
Dr. Chris Reddy, a University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography (URI GSO) alumni and Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) took some time to sit down with STEEP and ponder these very stresses and science communication struggles. And he should know a thing or two. Apart from an extensive scientific career working on projects like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Chris is also the published author of Science Communication in a Crisis: An Insider\u2019s Guide<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>released in Spring 2023.<\/p>\n In the course of Reddy\u2019s career, there have been no shortage of contamination issues to communicate to the wider world. From oil spills to persistent organic pollutants like DDT and PAHs, Reddy acquired science communication skills on the fly (though he also credits several experiences to the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and the Earth Leadership Program [formerly Aldo Leopold Leadership Program]).<\/p>\n Fellow GSO alum and former STEEP trainee, Matt Dunn, PhD, sought Reddy to talk about pollutants communication, garner advice for researchers, and uncover meaningful science for the everyperson.<\/p>\n MD: A lot of people in the PFAS world, me included, are sort of feeling the pressure right now to balance the stress of doing research and communicating our research to the world. What can you take from your own experience in terms of science communication that can also apply to PFAS?<\/em> <\/p>\n CR: I have studied a lot of chronic pollutants, there\u2019s this sense of always doom and gloom. You know, this isn\u2019t good news. In addition, now more than ever, people are impatient.<\/p>\n I jokingly blame Steve Jobs for many of the challenges scientists face when communicating science. Jobs conditioned people with the luxury to pull out their iPhones and type into Wikipedia, \u2018How many people were at the Patriots game last weekend?\u2019 and get the answer in four seconds. The result is certain and it\u2019s not going to change.<\/p>\n Now: you\u2019ve got a science question that may not be certain, you may not get the answer very quickly, and like it or not, it may change. Folks have become so conditioned to an immediate response that it becomes challenging to inform folks about complex issues in a swift, understandable, and meaningful manner. Like it or not, good, or bad, we have a society that expects immediate results with absolute certainty. <\/strong><\/p>\n So, my advice to folks communicating science beyond the limited attention span is to appreciate that everyone you\u2019re going to speak to has a different perspective and a different way to take in knowledge. Identify common interests. Find ways that science affects their lives and livelihoods. If you\u2019re incessantly pointing to X-Y graphs (or worse gas chromatograms) you\u2019re will rarely succeed\u201d<\/p>\n PFAS has come at a bad time, because it\u2019s just another acronym. Believe it or not, many folks still equate all contaminants to DDT\u2014despite their significant differences in source, transport, fate, and history of release. These are massive challenges, and there is no easy answer. If people are uniformed\u2026 it may be because it\u2019s not pertinent to them. Or science has not explained the differences.<\/p>\n MD: How would you describe lessons learned about the public\u2019s point of view on science?<\/em><\/p>\n CR: There\u2019s certainly the narrative that the lay public thinks science is a house of cards. But it\u2019s not. Rather it\u2019s this wonderful jigsaw puzzle. It\u2019s incremental, ever-expanding, and self-correcting \u2026 sometimes, frustratingly to some people, we jump around. But just because one piece is put in wrong doesn\u2019t mean the puzzle falls off the dining room table. Eventually, we will find the right piece \u2026 and it\u2019s slow. But we should not apologize for slow.<\/strong><\/p>\n
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