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Center for Communicating Science - teal and orange logo
Center for Communicating Science - teal and orange logo
Applying collaboration & arts practices to help scientists and others learn to tell their stories and connect across differences:
35,000 people impacted through our courses, workshops, presentations, and outreach.
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At Virginia Tech's Center for Communicating Science, we create and support experiences for scientists, engineers, scholars, and health professionals to build muscles of connection, communication, and collaboration. What sets us apart from other approaches and makes our work effective is that we use the powerful tools of the arts, including embodied learning, deep listening, improvisation, role play, and storytelling.
We believe in the power of play, and we believe that we learn through experience and by reflecting on our experiences.
We aim to help researchers make their communication more personal, direct, spontaneous, and responsive.
Communicating Science Mission Words: Personal
Build trust and learn through connection and engagement. Share stories, values, and emotions.
Communicating Science Mission Words: Direct
Drop your field-specific jargon; avoid acronyms; find a language in common with your audience.
Communicating Science Mission Words: Spontaneous
Learn relaxation and rehearsal techniques to build confidence in your ability to explain your research.
Communicating Science Mission Words: Responsive
Who is your audience? What do they need? What can you learn from them? How do you connect?
What's happening at the center?
Three Faculty Members Named Winners of Nutshell Talks March 4
Sixteen courageous and innovative faculty members stepped into the spotlight at the Moss Arts Center March 4, presenting their research to a lively public audience and a panel of discerning judges, including three 7th graders. With just 90 seconds each to explain their groundbreaking research, all 16 contestants dazzled the crowd during this fast-paced, fun, and informative showcase of the innovative work happening right here at Virginia Tech.
We challenged the judges to select three of the speakers to receive $1,000 each in professional development funding. The winners were
- Abhijit Sarkar, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, Seeing the Invisible: The Next Frontier in Remote Health Monitoring
- Bo Zhang, Plant and Environmental Science, Breeding a Better Bean: How My Soybeans Shape Your Food
- Pipiet Larasatie, Sustainable Biomaterials, The Rise of Wooden Skyscrapers!
June 3, 10, 17, 24; July 1, 8, 15, 22 — Communicating science workshop series for a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates program: Students Transforming Energy and Environmental Research (STEER; Department of Chemistry)
June 9, 23; July 14 — Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows communicating science workshop series
June 11, 18, 25; July 2, 9, 16 — Communicating Science Series, workshops for faculty involved in the COMPASS Center (Community Empowering Pandemic Prediction and Prevention from Atoms to Societies)
July 24 — Science on Tap, Rising Silo Brewery, 5:30 p.m. "How do we place early animal fossils on the tree of life?" Come join Prescott Vayda, fossil expert and Ph.D. student in the Department of Geosciences, to explore the challenges of figuring out "who goes where" on the tree of life. This is NOT a bribe, but. . .candy will be involved in this presentation! Science on Tap is free and open to the public.
You can read all about the Center for Communicating Science on our newsletter page. Here's some of what we've been up to recently:
6/26/2025 Science on Tap, New River Valley (Kevin Kochersberger: From the Wright Brothers to Advanced Air Mobility: 122 Years of Flight)
6/21/2025 Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity summer program staff workshop
6/14/2025 Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity summer program staff workshop
6/13/2025 Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity summer program staff workshop
5/19/2025 Whole Health Consortium 's "Whole Health, Whole Communities" symposium, Roanoke, Virginia (World Cafe facilitation)
5/13/2025 Communicating science faculty intensive
5/7/2025 Communicating science all-conference workshop, Southeastern Sustainability Directors Network annual meeting, Richmond, Virginia
4/24/2025 Science on Tap, New River Valley (Karyn Schy, Briann Brown, Jack Browning, Alana Hutchinson, and Alexis Mann: Neuroscience Night)
4/14/2025 "Distilling Your Message for Teaching and Outreach: Brief and Compelling Interactions with the People You Need to Talk to," an online CETL/CIRTL/TLOS workshop
4/3/2025 "Science on Tap New River Valley: A Successful Outreach Program Since 2017," poster presentation at Science Talk '25, Maria DeNunzio and Amy Hagen
3/27/2025 "Building a Communicating Science Ecosystem at a Land Grant University: Sharing Lessons." Panel discussion at Science Talk '25
3/27/2025 Science on Tap, New River Valley (Brogan Holcombe: Fitbits for black bears in Virginia?)
3/24/2025 "Improv Skills for Science Communicators." Workshop at Science Talk '25 facilitated by Jon Catherwood-Ginn, online format.
3/5/2025 "Picture a Scientist" and "Reel Talk" panel discussion with Virginia Tech faculty and students about the status of women in the STEM professions
3/4/2025 The Faculty Nutshell Talks!
3/3/2025 Faculty Nutshell Talks preparatory workshop, Part 2
2/28/2025 Fralin Fridays, hosted by the Center for Communicating Science
2/27/2025 Science on Tap, New River Valley (Noel Naughton: How does an octopus control its arms?)
2/14/2025 Tailor Your Message to Your Audience (workshop for Science Outreach course)
2/7/2025 Cultivating Science Communicator Identities (ICAT Playdate)
2/4/2025 The Art of Communicating Science (Virginia Cooperative Extension winter conference workshop)
1/31/2025 Faculty Nutshell Talks preparatory workshop
1/23 Science on Tap, New River Valley (Maria DeNunzio: Food for Thought: How Retail Spaces Shape Our Choices and the Planet)
1/23/2025 Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn (workshop for honors course on developing assistive technologies)
Center for Communicating Science - teal and orange logo
Center for Communicating Science
230 Grove Lane
Blacksburg, VA 24061
(Campus mail code: 0555)
Director Patty Raun
praun@vt.edu
Associate Director Carrie Kroehler
cjkroehl@vt.edu