I mentioned last week that I’m giving a talk at Vanderbilt tomorrow, but as they went to the trouble of writing a press release, the least I can do is share it:
It’s clear that this year’s Forman lecturer at Vanderbilt University, Chad Orzel, will talk about physics to almost anyone.
After all, two of his popular science books are How to Teach Physics to Your Dog and How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog. Orzel, an associate professor of physics at Union College in New York and author of the ScienceBlog “Uncertain Principles,” is scheduled to speak on campus at 3 p.m. Thursday, March 26.
As is the custom among my people, I sent them a title and abstract:
Title: Talking Dogs and Galileian Blogs: Social Media for Communicating Science
Abstract: Modern social media technologies provide an unprecedented opportunity to engage and inform a broad audience about the practice and products of science. Such outreach efforts are critically important in an era of funding cuts and global crises that demand scientific solutions. In this talk I’ll offer examples and advice on the use of social media for science communication, drawn from more than a dozen years of communicating science online.
This shares some DNA with the evangelical blogging-as-outreach talk I’ve been giving off and on for several years, but that was getting a little outdated. So I decided to blow it up and make a new version, which I nearly have finished… with less than 24 hours before my flight to Tennessee. Whee!
Anyway, if you’re in the Nashville area or could be on really short notice, stop by. Otherwise, stay tuned for Exciting! Blogging! News! early next week (give or take).
Sadly, I’m about 5 years removed from being able to go to this talk….
(I’m closer than I was a year ago, though, in that I’m in Eastern PA now.)
(And by Eastern PA, I mean Western PA.)
I’m happy to visit Western PA if you’d like to invite me to give this talk (and/or one of my other talks) where you are now…