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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.
Photo courtesy of Alexandra Freeze.
Photo courtesy of Cassandra Hockman.
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?
Don’t Miss Out: Faculty Nutshell Talks March 4 at the Moss Arts Center!
- What’s shorter than a TED Talk and twice as fun?
- The Faculty Nutshell Talks — and you’re invited to experience the excitement Tuesday, March 4, at 5:30 p.m. at the Moss Arts Center! This is your chance to watch brilliant Virginia Tech faculty tackle the ultimate challenge: explaining their groundbreaking research in just 90 entertaining seconds. This event is open to the public free of charge.
- More than a dozen courageous and innovative faculty members will step into the spotlight, presenting to a lively public audience and a panel of discerning judges, including a 7th grader. It’s fast-paced, fun, and informative — a showcase of the innovative work happening right here at Virginia Tech.
February 14 — "Tailor your message to your audience" workshop for Science Outreach course.
February 27 — Science on Tap, Rising Silo Brewery, 5:30 p.m. "How does an octopus control its arms?" The eight soft arms of an octopus lack bones entirely, instead having a unique muscular architecture that enables these arms to achieve unparalleled flexibility and dexterity. Please join us to learn from Virginia Tech assistant professor of mechanical engineering Noel Naughton about the biomechanical and neural control strategies used by octopuses to control their arms — and how studying these principles can aid the creation of robotic octopus arms. You'll get a chance to try out controlling some soft flexible arms and learn firsthand the engineering challenges of creating such robots. Science on Tap is free and open to the public.
March 4 — The Faculty Nutshell Talks! Join us at the Moss Arts Center for some fast-paced and fun presentations by Virginia Tech faculty members, each of whom will have a 90-second limit to present their research.
March 5 — "Picture a Scientist" at the Lyric Theater, show at 7 p.m., doors open at 6:30. Come for the movie, stay for a post-film “reel talk” panel discussion with Virginia Tech faculty and students about the status of women in the STEM professions. Celebrate Women's Month by learning about barriers and bridges for women in science!
April 14 — "Distilling Your Message for Teaching and Outreach: Brief and Compelling Interactions with the People You Need to Talk to," an online workshop open to faculty, post-doctoral researchers, and graduate students. 12:30 p.m. – 2:20 p.m. Find more information and enroll here.
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:
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