Episode description

Ana Maria Porras is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida working on human-microorganism interactions and science communication especially in different languages. 

***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools here***

Top 3 Takeaways:

• "Sometimes we see science communication as a way to convince more people to work in STEM but I think it's important beyond that. It's important that you understand the basis of how we do science and why we do science"

• "We think of science communication as what's happening when people go viral. But you can do a ton of great science communication in your immediate community. With your family, with your friends, with people in your community around wherever it is that you live."

• "Sometimes you learn a ton of stuff and then you realize it was all the wrong stuff. I think science communication is like any other scientific discipline. There are scholars, there are best practices. There are people who have been doing the research."

  So just like in any other scientific discipline, it's like important to acknowledge that there's like a whole ton of work that other people have done so that we don't always have to go and reinvent the wheel."

0:45 "Do you wanna introduce yourself better than I just did?"

1:30 "What exactly do you study and why is it important?"

4:45 Sponsorship by Ripple Neuro

5:00 "Let's talk a little bit about your experience with science communication. Why is it important?"

10:30 "Let's talk about the science communication and different languages"

13:15 "What's the reception been like?"

15:45 "For people who want to learn a little bit more about science communication, what do you recommend?"

19:00 "Are the science communication groups helpful or how much of what percentage of what you've learned has come from that versus just doing it?"

21:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"