Communicating your Research to Non-Academic Audiences - Lay Writing
Dr. Estrid Jakobsen will be leading this workshop on communicating research to non-academic audiences, with a focus on how to write in a lay form - relevant to blog posts and lay abstracts. This workshop will be informative AND interactive, so come ready to engage.
Learning Objectives:
Learn to distill complex topics into captivating blog ideas and effectively organize your content
Discover how to identify and remove scientific jargon, making your writing accessible and engaging for all audiences
Master the art of self-editing, employing practical tips to enhance readability and connect with lay readers effectively
Estrid was born in Denmark to an astrophysicist father and an amateur horticulturalist mother who instilled a relentless curiosity and an early interest in science. She decided at age 15 that she wanted to be a neuroscientist, and after graduating highschool in The Netherlands, moved to London, England, where she completed a Bachelor in Cognitive Science and a Master’s in Neuroscience. In 2016, she obtained her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, and then moved to Montreal to work as a postdoctoral fellow at McGill. Over time, she started to realize that the aspects of research that she thrived at and enjoyed the most were communicating, presenting, and thinking about science from a broader perspective. It became clear that she would rather know a little bit about a lot of things than everything about one very specific thing, and that research may not have been the right fit. In 2019, she was hired as the first Communications Officer for the Quebec Bio-Imaging Network (QBIN). Besides running the day to day communications for the network, her job involves encouraging and supporting researchers in improving their science communication skills and organizing public events to increase awareness and impact of bio-imaging research. She also leads the QBIN student and postdoc communications committee and provides editorial support and mentorship to contributors to the QBIN blog. When she manages to find the time, she write about topics she finds particularly fascinating on her personal blog, Headtime Stories, and sometimes takes on freelance science writing jobs for various companies.