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Hungry for Jobs and for Change, Scientists Join the Occupy Movement
Traffic backed up along Baltimore’s inner harbor last week as protestors from the “Occupy” movement waved signs and shouted at the passing drivers. And among the protestors were scientists and science students, unhappy with their job prospects, their funding prospects, and the way science is viewed in America. I had heard about the protests on…
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Salesmanship Lessons for Scientists from Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple Computers who died this week, had a reputation as a passionate business leader and a modern folk hero. In 1999 one of Jobs’s friends said, “He is single-minded, almost manic, in his pursuit of excellence.” That’s certainly a character trait we scientists can admire. Let’s take a look at another…
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Building a Professional-Looking Website Using WordPress
Dear Scientists, You are probably tired of hearing me rant about the importance of building a research website; we scientists need them to help develop our brands and build relationships with our colleagues and other potential customers. However, several of my colleagues have told me they wished they had websites, but they are daunted by the…
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Interview with Nobel Laureate John Mather
Scientists, John C. Mather won the Nobel prize in physics in 2006 for his work on the COBE satellite measuring the black-body radiation for the cosmic microwave background with startling precision. Time Magazine listed Mather as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007. As a senior astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard…
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Interview with Science Rapper Kate McAlpine
Scientists, The summer before the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) came online, a key LHC press officer (Dr. Katie Yurkewicz) went on maternity leave. Kate McAlpine, who was then a science communication intern half a year out of college, stepped in to help. Her main duties were to arrange visits for U.S. journalists to the collider and…
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Interview with Chris Lintott: Providing an Entry Drug to Science
Scientists, Once upon a time, Kevin Schawinski and Chris Lintott were working with a large surveys of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, trying to classify them based on their shapes: elliptical, spiral, irregular and so on. They ran into a problem. The computer software for making these classifications kept making mistakes. The human brain, it turns out,…
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Interview with USA Today’s Dan Vergano: We Don’t Sell Thinking Lessons
Dear Scientists, Thank you for all your comments on the Marketing for Scientists Facebook group about press embargoes and their effect on scientists. Today I was lucky to get Dan Vergano from USA Today on the horn to hear his take on the matter–and get his pointed comments on the tumultuous state of science and science reporting. Before he…
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I’m Not Going to Honor That Embargo: An Interview with Jim Austin, Editor of Science Careers
Scientists, Science Careers at Science Magazine is one organization that we seem to quote often on the Marketing for Scientists Facebook group. So when I met Jim Austin, the editor of Science Careers, at the National Postdoctoral Association meeting this spring, I jumped at the chance to interview him. Jim earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of…
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I Can’t Tell My Editor the Truth: an Interview with Science Journalist Michael Lemonick
Scientists, Last month, I blogged my interview with New York Times science writer, Dennis Overbye, about the state of science and science journalism. Almost immediately, I got a note from another major science journalism guru, Michael Lemonick, who had some strong reactions. I suggested he do an interview with me, and that’s what I have…