I am very interested in science communication to general audiences. To hone these skills as a graduate student, I participated in the Researches Expanding Lay-Audience Teaching and Engagement (RELATE) Communication Fundamentals Workshop in Summer 2020, and the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History’s Science Communication Fellows program in Fall 2023. As part of the RELATE workshop, I produced this video talk for general audiences. As part of the Science Communication Fellows program, I participated in two Scientist Spotlight events, at the Ann Arbor District Library and the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History.

After participating in the 2020 RELATE Communication Fundamentals workshop, I joined the coordinator team in Fall 2020, and have been serving as a workshop co-coordinator since. RELATE’s coordinator team consists entirely of University of Michigan graduate students. We teach one-off workshops on various elements of lay-audience science communication for U-M departments and graduate student groups upon request, and organize the yearly 8-10 week summer workshops for graduate students and postdocs, which is taught by the coordinators. We also partner with local science communication events, specifically Nerd Nite at the Ann Arbor District Library, and Scientist in the Forum at the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History, to give participants the opportunity to present a final deliverable to a lay-audience in-person (instead of, or in addition to, a YouTube video).