November 26, 2012

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Today: Using Social Media to Promote Science

By Kate Clancy

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Join me, Joanne Manaster, Melanie Tannenbaum and Prof. Bill Hammack today from 4-6pm at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Institute for Genomic Biology, room 612 (that's the room right next to Array Cafe, in the Gatehouse).

The University of Illinois has a surprising number of academics who are successful science writers, bloggers, photographers and social media users (I know I'm going to forget a few, but others who come to mind are Christine Herman, Dan Simons, and Alex Wild). I suspect the proportion of online science outreach folks is quite high here, and we're only starting to tap into our collective potential (Midwest Science Online, anyone?).

This afternoon's talk should be a great introduction to the panelists, our perspectives, and the concept of online science outreach. For my part, I'll likely discuss my own academic trajectory, how that led to blogging, my thoughts about the blogosphere versus academia, and the importance of historicizing and contextualizing science.

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Perhaps you'll get a few ideas about how to get started, or to take your own work in a new direction. Join us!

I am Dr. Kate Clancy, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. On top of being an academic, I am a mother, a wife, an athlete, a labor activist, a sister, and a daughter. My beautiful blog banner was made by Jacqueline Dillard. Context and variation together help us understand humans (and any other species) as complicated. But they also help to show us that biology is not immutable, that it does not define us from the moment of our birth. Rather, our environment pushes and pulls our genes into different reaction norms that help us predict behavior and physiology. But, as humans make our environments, we have the ability to change the very things that change us. We often have more control over our biology than we may think.

More by Kate Clancy

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