Podcasting about Astronomy

I love working on different projects every day.  Some days I present planetarium shows, some days I do a radio show, some days I’m doing video conference calls with school children, and some days I’m on TV commenting on recent space news.  I enjoy the variety that being a science communicator offers.  In that spirit, I want to introduce a project I’ve been working on for the past year, a podcast called “The Expanding Universe.”  Together with my good friend Jesse Rogerson (@JesseRogerson), a fellow astronomer and science communicator, we have been recording an episode every two weeks on...

Communicating Science

I am a big fan of John Oliver and his HBO show ‘Last Week Tonight.’  Last night the show covered a topic near and dear to me, the publication of science and how it is communicated to the layperson. He raises very important points about how scientists are motivated to produce exciting new research for grants and tenure, rather than replicating existing studies to prove or disprove them.  He also talks about how science is portrayed in the media, and how studies are interpreted without context or fine details. We need science communicators.  People who are scientifically literate and can communicate complex...