Observations from a mid-career, hybrid scientist communicator

Having firmly entered my mid-career years as a hybrid academic practitioner, it occurs to me to share a few things I've learned in case it helps those starting out. Although I only attend professional scientific society meetings once a year at most these days, I do still see a whole lot of tweets and am many conversations related to how the current system of training is not serving most students, who will go on to careers outside of academia. As someone who started asking these questions 20 plus years ago and organized quite a few "alternative science career" workshops in graduate school, it's interesting to reflect on where I am at this point. It also feels like there are enough of us that have already chosen or otherwise been on this path that there should be some lessons learned that can be shared.

Relationship first: An experiential workshop on relationship-centered approaches to climate communication

Gathering a stellar and open-hearted group of scholars and practitioners at the Mayacamas Ranch in northern California. Photo by me.

Last spring, Clare Gupta and I received support from Invoking the Pause to hold a workshop on relationship-centered approaches to climate change, which I've written a lot about in recent years. The basic idea is "relationship first," meaning that even when it comes to these heady scientific topics, it can be helpful to prioritize relationships with people over making a point. But, doing so definitely invites deep learning, self-reflection, and adaptation. The good news is that other fields like law, medicine, and psychology have made a lot of progress in how professionals navigate this terrain, and so there are a lot of resources out there.

Forging new paths in science engagement

The Pacific Crest Trail over the McCloud River. Photo by me.

I so appreciate this beautiful piece on "climate grief" and what it means for climate scientists. It was written by scientist Sarah Myhre and in a couple of my favorite passages, she says:

"We are hamstrung by our need for job security, funding, advancement, and promotion – because we, too, are juggling the demands of child rearing, aging parents, urban gentrification, and the winnowing of the middle-class.

Regardless, this is the time for a gut-check. Our job is not to objectively document the decline of Earth’s biodiversity and humanity, so what does scientific leadership look like in this hot, dangerous world?"

***

"I believe most scientists are also, quietly and professionally, mourning the loss of the balance of Earth’s life. The pain doesn’t stop. It’s carried upon every wildfire, coral bleaching, or marine die-off. But, we can use these waves of pain to inform our moral commitment to the present and future. It requires the brave integration of science and self, the acceptance of loss."

On Being: Stepping Stones of Integrating Emotions into Practicing Science

I could not be more thrilled to be a guest contributor at On Being. For those that don't already know it, it's a platform that explores the questions "what does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live?" hosted by the incomparable Krista Tippett. I love the blog and the podcast, and am so so so honored to be in the company of contributors like Parker Palmer and Courtney Martin.

You can read the full post -- "Stepping Stones of Integrating Emotions into Practicing Science" -- and dig around for some other inspiring content (like podcasts with Mary Oliver, Joanna Macy, John Lewis, Rachel Naomi Remen, and Seth Godin - so many good ones!) at their website. I have so much gratitude for the work they do.

Related posts:

• The emotional lives of scientists
• Grief and science 
• Contemplative practice in the sciences

Relatedness in action in science practice (#3)

In a beautiful blog post, Megan Adams gives a personal and honest account of both the benefits and challenges of community-engaged ecological research. In "Doing Science that Matters: Engaging with Communities in Collaborative Scientific Research," she describes working in coastal British Columbia and collaborating with groups of indigenous and non-indigenous people with "long-standing, adaptive, and evolving knowledge of natural systems" on a variety of projects.

Reconciling science research and practice

There is a lot of conversation these days around "bridging" research and practice in various fields - as a science and conservation type I tend to pay more attention to that piece, but I also see it in active conversation in the humanities and other fields as well. There are two main threads here that I think are helpful to break apart - one is how to better connect the results of research (and, not often enough, the process of research) with practice. The other related, but somewhat separate, piece is how to better train graduate students for practice-based careers in the sciences.

The secret superpower of subjectivity in science practice

Subjectivity - our internal experiences and perceptions of ourselves and our world - can be devalued in many aspects of life, and particularly in scientific training and careers. The pursuit of objective methods and analyses can lead to a sense that subjective experience more broadly is unimportant or inaccurate or irrational -- this is part of the "hidden curriculum" in graduate training and related professional norms. But, the thing you are rarely shown is that a healthy relationship with your subjective experience can be a big asset, particularly in fluid, practice-based careers.

Reinvisioning training - "clinical" practice in the natural sciences

I have written a bit about non-academic careers in the natural sciences from the perspective of what comes after policy fellowship programs and legitimizing the non-academic career path. In that second post I briefly touched on the idea of "clinical" training models and their applicability in the natural sciences. In fields like law and medicine, after (or while) time spent learning in the classroom or the lab, students are given the opportunity for "real world" learning via clinical practice. In law school that might involve taking on real cases, and in medical school, working with patients.

Contemplative practice in the sciences

In 2011, I gave a presentation at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America annual meeting on contemplative practices and community engagement in the sciences. The following year, I published a short paper on a related topic "From science communication to relationship-building: contemplative practice and community engagement in the environmental sciences." In some ways, I wish that I’d detached the issues of engagement and relationship-building from contemplative practice and written two separate articles, but, well, hindsight and all that. Even with 20/20 backwards vision, I still feel like bringing up a problem (getting from communicating to relating) without a solution (the contemplation piece) isn't super productive, but I also see that for folks uncomfortable with idea of contemplative practice, I obscured the relationship building piece.

How about the "purposeful" PhD?

Late last week another article on the lack of academic jobs came out - this time in the New York Times, with the very sad title "The Repurposed PhD: Finding Life After Academia — and Not Feeling Bad About It". As many of these articles do (and there are a plethora of them, particularly in the Chronicle of Higher Ed), it starts by reinforcing the idea that everybody in a PhD program wants an academic job, and can't get one, and we are all very, very depressed. Though always careful to throw in a sentence about how some rare people don't want academic jobs anyway, that is usually about as far as that discussion goes.

Exposing the underbelly - the hidden curriculum in the natural sciences

One thing that I find prevalent in the legal and medical literature is reference to a "hidden curriculum" in higher education. The concept originated in the 1970's and refers to the idea that as part of training, we are all subject to social and academic norms that might be quite different from the content of what we are being taught, which can be problematic on many levels.