How to mentor undergraduates as a postgraduate, and why it’s important

Posted on 13 Jun 2018 by Jack Leeming

Spending more time mentoring undergraduates as a postgrad is good for everyone, says Jenn Summers.

To-do lists work for some, but a more holistic approach to researcher development may bring larger rewards.{credit}By FOTO:Fortepan — ID 2278: Adományozó/Donor: Unknown. [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons{/credit}

There’s a difference between mentoring and doling out to-do lists. This is something I’ve learned over the past year, my first as a mentor. Mentoring undergrads became part of my job only recently – in the past, research came first. Most advisors value research outcomes over mentoring, and departments certainly place more value on publications. Before this past year, I was used to just a single undergrad working in my lab, and I thought of them as worker bees, not as future colleagues.

Put simply: I did not think about teaching in the lab.

Now, after guidance from recent research on mentoring, I realize that if graduate students like myself were more invested in mentoring, there would be many more small-but-important teaching opportunities.

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More to science: working as a Communities Manager

Posted on 18 May 2018 by Jack Leeming

Pixabay

This piece was originally published on the BioMed Central blog network, part of Springer Nature.

There’s more to science than being a scientist! Anna Perman, Communities Manager at the British Science Association, explains more about her role and how her science background has helped her along the way as part of our ‘Science > Careers’ series.

Dana Berry. Originally published 18 Feb 2016.

How did you get interested in science?

I never actually liked science very much when I was at school. I was much more of a fan of English, History and Drama. But when I was 15 and studying for exams, I had to teach myself about plant hormones, because I’d been absent for that part of the year.

I found the subtlety and complexity of the topic far more interesting than the multiple choice questions and fact sheets we’d studied from in class, and so I realized that actually science was a really fascinating way to understand and discover new things about the world.

What is your scientific background?

While I could always read, write and act as a hobby, I realized I could only do science as a job, so decided to study biology at University of Bristol. I still think it’s a shame that it’s so hard to do science as a hobby, and so after university, I did a Science Communication Masters at Imperial College London.

Here I learned more about people doing innovative science communication, which actively involved non-scientists in the scientific process. I worked in policy and media for a while, including in the media team at BioMed Central, before joining the British Science Association. Their vision of bringing science out of its silo, involving everyone in it, and putting it at the heart of culture and society really chimed with me.

How do you spend your day in your job?

In my job, I work with professional communities, encouraging and helping them to actively involve the public at the heart of science. I work with science communicators, to encourage best practice in creating truly two-way conversations with their audiences – we recently ran some research on the community and their needs, so that our work is really evidence-based. AnnaPerman

I run our work with Sciencewise, a government program to encourage deliberative dialogue – a technique where the public meet with scientists and policymakers to discuss science policy issues, in order to create better policy.

Finally, I run our Media Fellowships, where we link up scientists with journalists to help create understanding between these two groups. Every once in a while, I also help out on a few other campaigns and programs, including our essay series, Not Just for Scientists, and Science Matters, a series of films we released just before the general election.

All of this work involves a lot of relationship building, so lots of my time is in meetings and on the phone, or finding new and important thinkers and ideas. And because we want our ideas to be challenging and evidence-based, it’s amazing how much thinking, analysis and planning is involved.

What makes this a science job?

I spend much of my time at work thinking about the different ways that science can play a role in everyone’s lives. Whether that’s in more traditional ways, as a job, or watching documentaries and learning about science, or in some of the newer ways that are emerging – citizen science, makerspaces, and home experimentation.

It could be people having a more democratic involvement in science – in decisions about funding in the way that some medical research charities do, or in conversations and discussions with researchers to design experiments. Or even as a mindset that any of us can apply to our daily lives.

What do you like most about your job?

Within my team of five, only two of us did a science degree, which really helps make sure we’re constantly challenging each other, asking questions and thinking really openly about the role science can play in people’s lives.

I like the ambition and creativity that we’re able to bring to this work, and being able to be part of an organization that listens to a range of viewpoints, and working with people in and outside of science to challenge our views of what science can do.

Mostly, this involves being truly open to new ideas, which you can only really learn by listening, critiquing and challenging deeply held assumptions – both your own and other people’s. A lot of the same skills involved in science really!

What would you tell your younger self?

The most rewarding things I’ve done have been things that scared me a little. Taking on curating the program for TEDxAlbertopolis – an event in the Albert Hall for 4,000 people, was terrifying, but one of the best experiences I’ve had.

We brought together scientists, designers, historians, musicians, dancers and a crossword compiler, who all shared a fascinating common ground in the space between science and other subjects. I would advise myself that sometimes areas and ideas like these that seem scary or unfamiliar are actually the most valuable, because that’s where you find and learn the most.

Dana Berry graduated with a MS in Microbiology from New York University before joining BMC in 2014, where she manages the infectious diseases portfolio.

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Science careers and social media: will #IamScience and ‘This is what a scientist looks like’ help change perceptions?

Posted on 17 Feb 2012 by Rachel Bowden

To complement Social Media Week, the nature.com blogs team are publishing a series of posts about science and social media. Two of the posts focus on recent social media memes about science careers – the #IamScience hashtag on Twitter, and the ‘This is what a scientist looks like’ meme on Tumblr.

The #IamScience hashtag is being used by scientists to share the variety of ways they began their science careers. A guest post by Ben Lillie, co-founder of The Story Collider, explains how the meme emerged:

About three weeks ago, a science writer named Kevin Zelnio tweeted this:

And with that, he completely transformed what I thought was possible, and indeed what the point was, of social media.

The tweet came from a discussion of how people had started their science careers, and Kevin’s frustration that the path to a scientist was always depicted in one way: go to college, go directly to grad school. Hope it was a top-tier school, then, “Bam! You’re a scientist.”

But that wasn’t the path Kevin took, and it wasn’t the path most of the people he knew with careers in science took. So he tweeted, and encouraged others to tweet. It struck a chord, and within hours there were hundreds of people tweeting their stories with the hashtag #IAmScience.

Ben goes on to explain why the stories being shared via #IamScience are important:

These are tales of wrong turns, failed classes, delayed dreams, failed schools, rejection, disabilities, mistaken careers, and as you saw in Kevin’s tweet, much, much more. As science communicators we talk a lot about humanizing science. It doesn’t get much more human than this — but I’ve rarely seen a major science publication touch most of these subjects. And that, of course, is the power of Twitter. Things that would never be published anywhere find a way of bubbling to the surface.

While #IamScience is helping share diverse stories of how scientists began their science careers, the ‘This is what a scientist looks like’ website is showing the world that it’s not all lab coats and safety glasses once you get there. In another post, the nature.com communities team explain the concept:

Developed by science writer and multimedia specialist Allie Wilkinson, the concept is simple, a Tumblr blog which collates pictures of scientists from all walks of life. Allie explains, “there is no cookie-cutter mould of what a scientist looks like. A scientist can look like you, or can look like me.”

Allie wanted to show that anyone can be a scientist:

“In the movie Ratatouille, the motto repeated throughout is, ‘anyone can cook’. Although initially frustrated by this motto, the critic in the movie eventually realizes that not everyone can cook, but a great cook can come from anywhere,” explains Allie. “I want people to realize the same for scientists. Not everyone can be a scientist, just like not everyone can cook, but a great scientist can be anyone.” Allie hopes that this project will help change stereotypes and inspire kids to realize that they have the potential to be a scientist.

As the nature.com communities team conclude, only time will tell if social media initiatives such as #IamScience and ‘This is what a scientist looks like’ will really change the way people think about what a career in science involves. In the meantime, it’s certainly a powerful way to reach a wider audience and engage with the next generation of potential scientists.