Newsletter

Sept. 9, 2024. Center for Communicating Science director Patty Raun will participate in a Times Higher Education panel September 27. Titled “How to present research to a wider audience for greater impact,” the panel discussion will cover how to use new media to amplify your work, how to build a stand-out online profile, effective ways to discuss the impact of your research, and innovative methods of communication.

Sept. 7, 2024. When we dreamed up the Nutshell Games back in 2016 (thank you, Lesley Yorke!), 30 courageous graduate students stepped up the challenge of explaining their research in 90-second research talks to a public audience. We did not anticipate that in 2024 we’d be opening registration for the ninth such event and that nearly 250 students would have shared their work with the world in this way. But it’s fun! – for both the audience and the presenters.

Aug. 30, 2024. How does a couple pivot from graduate degrees in engineering to owning and operating a family farm? That’s what Glade Road Growing founders Sally Walker and Jason Pall shared on August 22, 2024, at the Rising Silo Brewery-hosted Science on Tap event “Growing Glade Road Growing.” With the Glade Road Growing farmstand as a backdrop to the talk, participants followed the couple’s journey from unused land to fully fledged farm.

Aug. 16, 2024. Center for Communicating Science (CCS) faculty are used to helping others develop their communication skills. But we’re always ready to learn, too, and CCS director Patty Raun is still processing all that she encountered on a recent trip to Kenya. One example of the complexity of research communication in Kenya, Raun said, is that the country is made up of 47 different tribes, each with its own language or dialect.

Aug. 12, 2024. Along with courses, workshops, intensives, and multiple venues for researchers to share their work with others in person, the Center for Communicating Science provides opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to develop their writing skills and for researchers to share their work in written form. The products of several different writing projects appear on our website’s Research Stories page.

Aug. 9, 2024. It's Flip the Fair time! This is the third year of Flip the Fair, the fun research outreach event at which graduate students present their research and elementary school kids act as judges. The event will be held at the Melrose Branch Public Library in Roanoke on September 26, 2024, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., with 5th graders from six Roanoke elementary schools attending to serve as judges for the “flipped” science fair.

Aug. 8, 2024. The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Science Communication is an award for engaging science communication. Given by the National Academies for Science, Engineering, and Medicine in partnership with the philanthropy Schmidt Sciences, 24 annual awards go to graduate students, faculty members, research scientists, and others.

Aug. 1, 2024. What makes a home? How do we decide an appropriate place for threatened species to live? What even is landscape ecology? This month’s Science on Tap speaker, Connor Hughes, aimed to answer these questions in his presentation and to explain how they tie into his work as a landscape ecologist.

Aug. 1, 2024. This summer has been filled with workshops facilitated by Center for Communicating Science (CCS) faculty for a variety of organizations and programs. We've been delighted to work with visiting scholars from around the globe, undergraduate researchers from universities across the state and nation, and high school students considering Virginia Tech as their college home.

July 31, 2024. Communicating research to people outside of one’s field can be very difficult, especially for students new to a program or a major who are just beginning to learn the language of the field. That’s why a Department of Chemistry Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program partnered with the Center for Communicating Science (CCS) to provide communicating science workshops for the REU program’s participants.