Random Walk 26: Zi Yan Chen on ComSciCon-GTA

Welcome back to the show, I’m your host Adam, and this week I am going to be talking to ZiYan Chen about communicating science as a researcher and grad student. But before we get to the interview, I’m excited to announce that as well as being a guest on this episode, ZiYan is one of our very first guest authors on our website, scientificanada.ca . This is a big deal for us! One of my first goals I had with this project was to get to a position where I could start sourcing articles from contributing writers. But I wanted to make sure I did it ethically.

In a lot of cases, young scientists and science communicators aren’t paid for their work. In a lot of cases, communicating research to the public, writing articles that don’t end up in an academic journal, or doing outreach activities are seen as secondary to “real” research. A lot of aspects of academia seem to operate under the expectation that experts will volunteer their time and expertise. As much as I wanted to get scientificanada to a place where we could start taking articles from contributors, I didn’t want to do it unless these writers could be compensated in something concrete. Like money. And that’s where our Patrons have come in.

At this point, we are still operating at a loss, considering website hosting, purchasing domains, not to mention the time I spend recording and editing episodes and our site. But over the last year I’ve been putting away contributions from our few but consistent Patrons, and because of them, I’ve been able to start commissioning articles for the website.

So first, thank you to everyone who has subscribed to our Patreon, I couldn’t do all of this without your support.

Second, please check out ZiYan Chen’s article, up on scientificanada.ca/articles . She’s written a great piece about attending ComSciCon-GTA, or, the Greater Toronto Area’s first Science Communications conference, including a whole load of take-aways that are super useful for anyone just starting out in “sci-comm”.

And thirdly, all of this will always be free - the podcasts, the articles, everything - but there is so much more I want to do with this platform. There are so many scientists and researchers with fantastic stories and opinions, and so many different voices that need to be shared, and I want to help get these stories heard. If you want to help us keep doing what we’re doing, and then some, please consider joining our Patreon. As little as 1-dollar per month helps, and with that you will get early access to all of our content, as well as some bonuses every so often.

Anyway, thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoy my interview with Zi Yan Chen, about attending the GTA’s first ComSciCon. Oh, and check out Tareq on Instagram at @RCIscience and www.theatlantic.com/projects/planet ps our website is www.scientificanada.ca . jus' sayin'