Series Description:

Securing a key collaboration, obtaining funding, successfully defending your thesis, scoring the ideal position, even describing your research to family and friends, all of these depend on your ability to convey complex scientific ideas in accessible language without oversimplifying or sacrificing accuracy.

This three-part Zoom workshop equips you with skills in explaining science so that you will be prepared to do so in a variety of settings in both speech and writing. Through facilitated discussion and feedback, structured exercises, and asynchronous work on the provided Microsoft Teams site, participants will develop practical strategies for constructing explanations in ways that are mindful of the target audience, such as reordering the sequence of a string of ideas.

Working with participants from OIST and other Japanese universities, you will practice starting from the audience’s existing knowledge, learn to create curiosity, and effectively use terminology, metaphors, and examples. You will then test your explanations by examining what listeners understand, revising and adapting explanations in response to peer feedback. Each participant may also schedule up to two, half-hour, one-on-one sessions with the workshop facilitator, Dr. Brandon Conlon, Academic Professional and Career Development Specialist, OIST Graduate School.