Ethical Science Communication to the Public: New Concerns for Societies and Publishers

Duration: 1 hr 2 mins
Publication Date: 2022 | Jun 02

About the session

The value of accurate, timely, and effective science communication to the public is undisputed, especially considering the devastation caused by misinformation during the pandemic. The entire scientific process is now under ever greater public scrutiny and science communication professionals find themselves walking a tightrope to retain or gain back public trust. As science media and scholarly publishing organizations worldwide refine their efforts to communicate science to lay audiences, ethical considerations are bound to arise. These go beyond the given issues of accuracy and impartiality and include cryptic questions about preprints for clinical trials, the timing of clinical study disclosure to mainstream media, and how to display confidence in research findings while stating caveats. In this session, publishing and science communication specialists will share different strategies they use to ensure ethical research communication, with the ultimate goal of helping viewers audit and refine their own organization's communication policies and practices. || Speakers: Donald Samulack; Laura Helmuth; Sara Serritella; David Mellor

Collection

Annual Meeting (2022)

Speakers

Editor in Chief, Scientific American

Laura Helmuth is the Editor in Chief of Scientific American. She has been an editor for The Washington Post, National Geographic, Slate, Smithsonian, and Science magazines. She is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s standing committee on advancing science communication and serves on the advisory boards of SciLine, a program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that connects reporters with scientific experts; High Country News; and 500 Women Scientists. She has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from the University of California at Berkeley. She is active on Twitter at @LauraHelmuth.
Director of Communications, Institute for Translational Medicine

Sara Serritella, Director of Communications, Institute for Translational Medicine; Lecturer at The University of Chicago and The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine Sara Serritella is an award-winning investigative journalist turned Director of Communications at the Institute for Translational Medicine that’s powered by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and she is a lecturer at The University of Chicago and UChicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine. Sara enjoys teaching science communication to physicians, researchers, faculty, medical students, and undergraduates, and her high-energy presentations grace the stages of global and national conferences. She leads The New Normal™ and Save Da Hoomans™ campaigns, a collaboration with The University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Illinois at Chicago, Rush, Loyola University Chicago, and others that has won national awards while increasing awareness of and participation in health research. As a partner at Vantius and licensed private detective, Sara’s favorite high-profile cases are helping to exonerate wrongfully-convicted individuals. She translates the behavioral science and experience connecting with people of all backgrounds to her work in scicomm and education. Sara is also a proud alum of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications, and she has reported at media outlets across the country and contributed to Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting. Sara is a lover of rescue pit bulls, yoga, travel, and awesome alliteration.
Director of Policy, Center for Open Science

David Mellor is the Director of Policy at the Center for Open Science and works to ensure that ideal practices in scientific research, such as data sharing, protocol transparency, and replication; are recognized and rewarded for scientists working to get published, funded, and hired. David's background training is in ecology and citizen science, and received his PhD from Rutgers University.
Head, Global Stakeholder Engagement, Cactus Communications

With a PhD in medical physiology and specialization in the neurosciences, and as Head, Global Stakeholder Engagement at Cactus Communications, Donald is actively involved in supporting the publication needs of the academic and publishing communities, managing workflows across global time zones, and raising the level of awareness and professionalism of good publication practices, worldwide. As such, he understands the logistics of scholarly publishing, peer review, as well as the global outsourcing of author support and research communication services, and is a major player in shaping perceptions, defining workflows, and delivering quality.