Episode 86 – Interview with climate change communicator Dr Simon Torok

We’re ending Season 11 with a fabulous conversation with climate change communicator Dr Simon Torok. Simon is CEO and Director of Scientell, a science communication company that seeks to maximise the impact of scientific information. He distils technical information for non-scientific audiences to communicate the importance of science in our lives and its role in understanding the environment. Simon has a Graduate Diploma in Science Communication from the Australian National University, and completed a PhD in climate change science at the University of Melbourne. He has managed communication for CSIRO in Australia and for the Tyndall Centre in England. He was editor of the Helix and Scientriffic science magazines, and has published more than 200 newspaper, magazine and scientific journal articles. He has co-authored 20 popular science and climate change books, several of which have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean and Hungarian.

You can follow Simon and learn more about his work here:

• https://www.scientell.com.au/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-torok-5570782/
• https://x.com/Simon_Scientell

Transcript

Jen (00:00:22)
Hello, everybody. I am beyond happy to welcome you to another episode of Let’s Talk SciComm. It is my favorite place to be.
And happily I get to be with one of my very favorite people. Good morning, Michael.

Michael (00:00:35)
Good morning, Jen. Yeah, happy to be here.
A bit chilly this morning, but looking forward to today’s chat.

Jen (00:00:41)
Yes. Well, that’s good that you mentioned weather because we are talking with someone today who knows a lot about temperature and climate.
So today we’ve got a really long time friend of ours and of our teaching program joining us, Dr. Simon Torok.
And I have to be honest, I’ve really got no idea why or how it’s taken us so long to invite Simon onto the show because he’s been doing really important and impactful SciComm work for a very long time now. And we are massive fans of what Simon is doing now and what he’s done in the past.
So Simon’s got a PhD in climate change science and he looked at Australia’s historical temperature record, so your temperature segue was very good there, Michael.
But Simon also has a graduate diploma in science communication from the Australian National University. And that qualification is affectionately referred to as the Science Circus here in Australia, so we’ll be asking Simon about that.
He also worked as a communication manager at CSIRO, CSIRO, which is Australia’s national science agency for many years. He’s been a communication manager for the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in the UK. He worked as an editor of Helix Magazine, CSIRO’s beloved science magazine for kids.
He’s written a ton of books. And I don’t know how many, we’ll have to ask Simon in a moment, including a book called “Imagining the Future: Invisibility, Immortality and 40 Other Incredible Ideas”. And that book was co-authored with his friend and very close colleague, Paul Holper.
And that leads me to Scientell, which is the science communication and marketing agency that Simon and Paul co-founded in 2015.
And Scientell specialises in planning, but also implementing communication strategies for scientific organisations, environmental organisations, all sorts of really interesting work.
And yeah, Simon and Paul, it’s nearly 10 years now, have been doing all sorts of fascinating work, which I’m really looking forward to hearing more about.
So welcome, Simon. Thank you for making time.

Simon (00:02:51)
Thanks very much, Jen and Michael. And yeah, I also can’t believe I haven’t been on this podcast before.
I mean, Jen and I have had many conversations about science communication and life over the years.
So it’s great that we can now record one of those conversations.

Michael (00:03:03)
Pleasure having you on, Simon.
And I just want to say, what an incredible title for a book that you just read out there, Jen. “Imagining the Future: Invisibility, Immortality and 40 Other Incredible Ideas”.

Jen (00:03:14)
Can I be both invisible and immortal? That is my question.

Michael (00:03:16)
Yeah.

Simon (00:03:18)
Yeah, combining them. And I mean, there was some nice alliteration there, but the idea was to engage young people in particular in science by talking about the exciting things that sound like science fiction, but when you get down to it, a lot of the science has already been done.
So things like invisibility as you may know, there’s various techniques with light, to bend light and reflect light and so on. Where yeah, the science has been done in lots of… Not sure about immortality, but you know, some of the things we talked about, the science has progressed quite some way.
And the idea was to talk about these exciting areas of what feel like science fiction but are becoming science fact.

Jen (00:03:55)
So you’re telling me that within my lifetime, I’ll be able to have a Harry Potter-esque invisibility cloak? That’s all I want, really.

Michael (00:04:02)
But that’s, that’s what I was thinking when you read out that title.

Simon (00:04:07)
You’ll have to get hold of the book to find out the answer to that.

Michael (00:04:10)
Yeah.

Jen (00:04:10)
Indeed. So Simon, I really want to hear how you discovered science communication, because when I look at your CV, you know, you were doing a very kind of standard science thing, studying science as an undergrad and then a very respectable science PhD.
But you went pretty much straight from that into the Science Circus, which suggests to me that you discovered your interest or your passion for science communication during your PhD.
Whereas for many of us, it takes years to work out that actually we don’t want to be scientists ourselves, we want to be science communicators. Well, obviously both, but you get the distinction.
So tell us, what’s your story? How did you end up choosing science communication as a path?

Simon (00:04:52)
Yeah, well, I mean, and it is, it was a tough decision to move from science to science communication. I loved science, loved doing science research. But I enjoyed science communication even more.
So I wanted to stick around with scientists and in science, but not be the one doing the research. I wanted to help researchers communicate their work.
And perhaps the light bulb moment for me where I realised that’s what I wanted to do was due to an experience about a year or so into my PhD.
I was sitting at the pub as you do during your PhD with a close friend. And we’re talking about how the coming week was going to be really hot.
It was as kids were going back to school, as unis were starting again. And we’re at the pub, we’re having this discussion about “isn’t that always the way that when you go back to school, it feels like it’s the, you know, that’s when the heat starts”.
And I said to this mate, “Well, I’ve actually just collated all of Melbourne’s temperature data. So we could have a look at that for Melbourne where I was doing my PhD and see whether over the past 50 years or so, the time that kids go back to school has been the hottest time of the year or not.”
So we just, that was a Friday night. We spent the Saturday and Sunday looking at the data, looking at when schools returned by. You know, back in those days, it’s the early 90s.
We actually had to go to the library and fish out teaching journals and get dates that way. But we managed to prove that the week that kids go back to school in Melbourne, at least, has been the hottest week of the year, pretty much every year for the past 50 years.

Jen (00:06:16)
Really? Wow, I thought that was a myth.

Simon (00:06:35)
Yeah. No, it’s… When you look at the actual data and the dates that kids go back, that was the case.
So it occurred to us that that was an interesting story, perhaps not a big publishable scientific paper.
But we contacted the Age newspaper and said, “We’ve got this interesting story”. And Graeme O’Neill, the science journalist at the Age interviewed me and wrote up a story that when I got up on I think, the Monday morning, or maybe it was the Tuesday morning, I found that it was on the front page of the Age, the longest story on page three.
And then my phone rang and it was Neil Mitchell, early in his career, calling from his chat show to have a discussion with me. And then Channel 7 came and interviewed us.
And by the end of that day, I realised that what I was going to spend four years doing my PhD on and what scientists are interested in is actually quite different to what the media and perhaps everyone else who is non-scientific is interested in.
And that then started me down the path towards communicating science rather than researching science.

Michael (00:07:15)
Well, that’s really interesting, Simon, that you had that experience and you were, you know, interacting… I guess, kind of plunged into the deep end there.
You were interacting with media for the day, and it sounds like you reflected on that experience and thought you know, Wow, science communication is actually a really important thing for scientists to be able to do.
And I’m just curious, do you reckon you would have ended up there eventually, or is it something perhaps special about the topic that you were communicating about and your you know, background being in climate science, climate change science?
I guess that’s a topic where there is a particular urgency and a really I guess, a hunger for information. So yeah, just curious to get your thoughts on that.

Simon (00:07:56)
Yeah, it’s a really interesting area to work in, science communication in the area of climate change. ‘Cause it’s urgent, it’s, you’ve got adversaries and denialists saying it’s not happening. It’s you know, a broad area that’s got all sorts of ramifications and should lead to behavioral change.
It was a really interesting time to see that huge increase in interest in the topic and also deal with, as I say, adversaries and denialists and people who are saying that the science that was being done was not real.
It was the people, you know, were talking about belief in the science rather than understanding and acceptance and evidence about the science.
It was a shock and a great learning experience to see how to think about the audience that you’re communicating with and how they see science and the importance of explaining the whole process of science.

Jen (00:08:49)
And so Simon, was going over to the UK then for you to equip yourself with a better understanding of the research of communicating that science? ‘Cause it sounds like it was complicated.

Simon (00:09:01)
Well, no. So the move to England, to the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research was because an opportunity came up to… I’d been working in a more general science communication job, as editor of the Helix Magazine, communicating lots of broad areas of science. It was a great job, interacting with you know, the circulation at the time was about 30,000 at the Helix Magazine.
So we’d be writing stories and publishing stories in the magazine every couple of months, and then hearing from these kids about the excitement they had in science. So that was a fantastic experience.
But then the opportunity came up to bring that more general science communication back together with my science and take up the role of communication manager in this climate change research center and have the experience of working overseas. So that’s why I went over there.
And what I learnt there was I guess, it was [a more sort of] interdisciplinary approach to climate change communication and the importance of looking at responses and solutions to the problem requiring not just physical scientists, but social scientists and even beyond science into economics and political science and thinking about how to change people’s behavior and influence policy.
So that was a great experience working there. And then, yeah, I came back to CSIRO to work with Marine and Atmospheric Research Scientists at CSIRO.

Michael (00:10:12)
Yeah, that’s really really interesting. You know, I know you moved on from CSIRO and started your own business then in Scientell.
So yeah, I’m curious to ask you about your work with Scientell. You decided to take a leap of faith, I guess, and leave your job at CSIRO.
What was the motivation behind that and how did you find that transition?

Simon (00:10:34)
Well, yeah, so as Jen mentioned in the introduction, I’ve written quite a few books with my business partner, Paul Holper. We’ve now written 20 books together, so…

Jen (00:10:42)
20, I did try and find a number and it was not easy to find online, Simon. So thank you.
20 books, that is incredible. Congratulations.

Michael (00:10:47)
Wow.

Simon (00:10:51)
Thank you. Yes, I’ve written 10 half books, I guess is the way to think about it.
And it’s been great working with Paul on the books in our spare time over the years. We started writing together in the late ’90s.
He had young kids at the time who sort of the age of the audience we were writing for, then we got sort of kept writing together and then I had kids who were that sort of audience and even now they’ve grown out of the audience who we were writing for.
Because we were writing in our spare time while we had full-time jobs and families and social lives, we managed to fit it in and always meet deadlines and we had similar writing styles and similar outlooks on life.
And that made us realise that we could do more than just write books together, we should think about getting together and form a science communication company. So that’s what we did in 2015.

Jen (00:11:37)
And so it’s obviously nine years down the track and I’m looking forward to an invitation to your 10th birthday party.
But clearly it’s turned out that a lot of people need your help. Is there any, ever been any kind of doubt that there are, you know, that there’s really important work that you can bring your expertise to?

Simon (00:11:55)
No, so there, yep, there’s been, I mean, obviously we have to do a lot of development of the business to ensure people know we’re here and that they can come to us to help with science communication activities and that’s what we’ve found.
We’ve worked with government departments, so particularly state and federal, but also local governments to help communicate research to audiences that they want to reach.
So local governments reaching people who live in their municipality to understand how to adapt to climate change, for instance. State governments wanted to get out the latest research on climate change and other areas to see how the government is responding to environmental challenges.
We also work with universities and research centres, groups of scientists who want to have their research communicated to particular audiences who need to use their research.
So yeah, so we find that there are groups who want help taking complicated information in whatever form, it might be an individual research paper published in a peer-reviewed journal or it might be a collection of technical reports.
But in any case, what we do is take that complicated source material and develop it into a communication product.
And again, that communication product may vary from a brochure to a video or a website or even an animation where we’d work with specialist communicators to help deliver that communication product.
But in short, we work with government, university and other researchers to take complicated material and translate it and clarify it and tailor it for an audience as a particular communication product.

Michael (00:13:26)
Yeah and you know, it’s a really strong track record that you have of working with these different groups and organisations.
And I know you work with them quite closely and you’re interacting with people in a, I guess kind of a personal way.
And you know, because you’ve been doing it for nine years now, I’m just curious to know, you know, have you seen any trends in what people are interested in or asking for help about? Are some of the problems the same, but have there been any kind of new problems that people need help with that have emerged recently?

Simon (00:14:01)
Yeah, good question. I think maybe there’s some areas of science that we’ve been involved in recently.
So groups of artificial intelligence researchers. So we’ve facilitated workshops and run events with people in that domain. So that’s been new and interesting.
And also something that we’re very aware of is also how AI may influence science communication as a profession and a career and how people may start to think that they can just feed something into a complicated bit of information into an AI tool and ask it to rewrite it for a particular audience, which is possible.
But think what we need to get across is there’s a lot of nuancing and a connection to real people and real audiences and an understanding of what’s between the lines that needs to be factored into that translation.
And so we certainly think that even if people feel that it’s something they can do themselves with help of AI, there’s still going to be a need for that layer of quality and interpretation in using AI to translate information for different audiences.
So yeah, so AI’s one area, both as far as influencing our practice and also as a domain we help communicate that has really come up over the last couple of years.
And as far as the evolving areas of science, as I mentioned, probably more of an understanding of climate change science and the importance of doing something about it.
So the communication activities that we’ve been involved in climate change has been a lot about how to adapt to the changes we’re already seeing and adapting to warmer temperatures and less rainfall in populated parts of the country. And so it’s [sort of] a move from communicating the science to communicating what to do about it has been huge.

Jen (00:15:38)
Yeah. How the hell are we going to manage?

Michael (00:15:41)
Yeah.

Jen (00:15:42)
Simon, something that hasn’t changed from what I can see during your career is this really strong focus on communicating with kids.
You know, you had your time with Helix Magazine, now known as Double Helix Magazine. Twenty kid’s books. Actually, no, they’re not all for kids, are they? But the majority of them for kids. Why kids?
Obviously, you know, you said you each had your own families. But I’m sure there’s more to it than that.
Is it because of this sense of the kids are the ones who are going to have to solve this complete mess that we’ve created from a climate and environmental point of view?
Is it because of the joy that comes from writing in a way that’s accessible to younger readers? Like why the focus on kids?

Simon (00:16:23)
I think the drive for me is wanting to influence kids in keeping up with science and seeing the importance of science, not just if they want to become a research scientist, but as far as understanding that the training you get from science is a great basic training for whatever career you end up in.
So I think why I particularly like writing for kids is everything you said. It’s, you know, they’re the next generation. They’re going to save and clean up, save us and clean up the mess that we’ve made.
It’s really fun…

Jen (00:16:51)
We hope.

Simon (00:16:52)
Yeah, yeah. It’s a really fun audience to write for and it’s a challenge as well to express things in a way that can be understood by young people using language and concepts that are understood by young people.
But yeah, as I say, [I’m] also really interested in ensuring that kids see the excitement of science as a hobby, not just as a science subject at school and can see what real science actually is.
And that is asking questions about the world and finding answers to explain the world around you. That’s what science is.
And so if we can get across that love of science and enjoyment in the wonder of explaining what is in the world around them, then hopefully that will lead to them keeping up with science through their education and seeing that science, as I say, is a great underpinning, basic training to how to do any career and how to live life, not just if you want to be a research scientist.

Jen (00:17:44)
Hear hear. How to live a better life.

Michael (00:17:44)
Yeah. No, that’s great. I guess, you know, working with kids there, you get to see a lot of potential and that this is the next generation of scientists coming through and some of the problems that we think are, may be impossible to solve today, maybe they won’t be impossible to solve tomorrow.
So, you know, I can imagine there’s a lot of you know, you take a lot of hope and you see a lot of promise when you’re working with those kids.
You know, you mentioned some, one of the shifts that you’ve made recently is that in climate change communication, that it’s gone from communicating about the science to now communicating about okay, how are we going to adapt to these changes?
So I’m kind of curious to just ask you personally. Like how are you feeling about Earth’s climate? Are you feeling optimistic or pessimistic or you know, where do you sit?

Simon (00:18:34)
Well, I guess why I feel optimistic is that, ’cause I’ve been in this game for a long time. I’ve seen the evolution from a lot of controversy and adversary and questioning of the science through to an accepting of the science and gee, you know, as a world, we need to do something about it.
So the communication of the science has come a long way. Understanding of the science
and the evolution to what do we do about it has come a long way.
So I think that gives me some optimism is that we’re not where we were 20 years ago where there were you know, newspaper articles about climate change where here’s this climate scientist and here’s this person who doesn’t believe in climate science and that was the story.

Michael (00:19:11)
Yeah, yeah.

Simon (00:19:11)
I still remember. It’s actually a good communication lesson of the front page of the Australian newspaper back in the year, in the early 2000s when I was working in an area where we were trying to communicate about how sea levels are rising and they’re not just rising there, the rise is accelerating.
And the front page of the Australian was this 80 year old surfer sitting on his surfboard looking out at the sea at Bondi Beach saying, “I’ve been surfing here for 80 years and I haven’t seen any rise in sea level.”
You know, this image sticks in my mind but there’s a lesson in science communication there. So you’ve got to connect with your audience and you can’t just talk about the facts. You’ve got to connect with people’s lived experiences.
And so yeah, so we have come a long way from that front page of the Australian story. We have in communication improved our practice and drawn on theory and all the academic research that’s gone into how to communicate with audiences better.
And there’s even specific journals about climate change communication that we’ve, as practitioners, I think have kept up with to some extent and that’s influenced us to some extent. I think we need to have our communication practice influenced by communication theory even more.
But yeah, it has, we’ve come a long way. So that gives me some optimism. The urgency when it comes specifically to climate change responses, the urgency of the problem and how quickly we need to act as a planet.
Yeah, it does make me pretty nervous but I’m still holding on to that optimism.

Michael (00:20:38)
Oh well, that’s good to hear that you’re feeling optimistic and that there’s you know, been great improvements.
I’m just noticing the time here, Simon. I can’t believe we’ve been chatting for so long and we’re near the end of our podcast.
But before we let you go, we would like to shift gears a little bit and move to some rapid fire questions.

Simon (00:20:58)
OK, scary.

Michael (00:20:58)
So drum roll, are you ready?

Simon (00:21:00)
I’ll just have to increase my adrenaline to get my mind thinking for rapid fire.

Michael (00:20:59)
You just increase your adrenaline. Yep.

Michael (00:21:20)
First question I’d love to ask is if you could pick an alternative job to what you’re doing today, what would it be?

Simon (00:21:27)
A couple of things come to mind.
My older brother’s a comedian. So I’ve always thought that’d be fun, being a comedian.
And in fact, when I lived in Canberra, I did enter a comedy, an amateur comedy competition and won through from the heats into the finals being a scientific comedian, telling jokes and comedy about science. So that was a lot of fun.
I guess I wanted to show my comedian brother that I could do it too, but I would never go down that path.
So yeah, but as an alternative path, that sounds like a fun thing to do.
But the other one that…

Jen (00:21:58)
Stand up comedian, I love it.

Simon (00:21:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Gee, and have all those die every night as you get up on stage, it’s pretty scary.
So maybe a less scary alternative career. I love music, but I’m not particularly good at it. But I love playing guitar and singing along to the guitar and having a jam with my kids as well.
So to form a band and be a musician be a dream as well. So these, these are, both of those are alternative in my dreams type of careers rather than anything realistic.

Michael (00:22:29)
Well, could be future careers. You never know.

Jen (00:22:33)
Absolutely. And I think it leads nicely to the next question, whether this could help you with either of those dreams.
If you could pick to have a superpower, what would your superpower be?

Simon (00:22:44)
Ah, well yes, it would relate to music.
I wish that I could… So one of my kids can listen to a song and then play it on the piano, that it just feels the music.
I wish I had, I don’t know whether it’s a superpower, but it’s a power some people have to be able to just turn what they hear into music straight away or feel music and think of songs and play them straight away. I just would love that ability. But…
So that would help me in my alternative career of being a folk singer, songwriter or something.
But as far as my actual career in science communication, I think that the superpower really is about listening and that would be the… I hopefully do it enough already, but I’d like to increase my ability to listen and be aware of audiences more than thinking of, and thinking about what they want to hear more than what I want to say.

Jen (00:23:27)
Yep.

Michael (00:23:28)
Yeah, I would also like that superpower.
Okay, so we’re staying in the realm of supernatural I guess, I don’t know. Can you call time travel supernatural? Maybe it’s something different,
But okay, we’ve got a time machine now. You can go back and give yourself a message at the age of 21. If you do that, what would you say to yourself?

Simon (00:23:50)
First of all, I’d be quite shocked as a 21-year-old to see this old bloke who looked a little bit like me giving me advice, but I would welcome the advice.
And perhaps the thing I would say to the younger me is not to worry so much about failure in particular.
So to give everything a go. If I have one regret in my life is it is perhaps that I played things safe.
And even going out to start my own business, that was still playing things pretty safe and evaluating the risk and you know, taking calculated risks.
I would like to have failed a little bit more ’cause I think you learn a lot from failure.
So I would be saying to my young self, “Don’t worry about failure. Don’t worry about what other people think too much”. And yeah, “Don’t take things too seriously”.

Jen (00:24:35)
Golden advice Simon, for all of us.
Everyone listening, I think is probably taking notes right now.
Let’s fail more, worry less, take some risks.
I think this follows nicely. My next question is given that you are without question a leader in the space of science communication and specifically climate change communication, what do you think makes a good leader?

Simon (00:25:00)
So when we come back to that superpower about listening, I think you need to listen and take advice, but also take that advice and what you’ve heard and lead with it.
So be clear, have a clear vision, but manage to articulate where you feel you’re going.
So I think listening, taking advice and incorporating that into a clear vision that you can communicate well — to me is adequate leadership.

Jen (00:25:28)
Yeah, hear hear.

Michael (00:25:29)
Good advice. So on that point of communicating well Simon. The last question that I want to ask you is what would be your very top tip for communicating effectively about science?

Simon (00:25:40)
Can I give 3 tips? In fact, there’ll be 3 sound bites cause I’ve been…

Michael (00:25:43)
That’s, that’s value for money for us…

Jen (00:25:45)
Beautiful.

Simon (00:25:45)
I’ve been… I’ve kind of gone off social media and I’ve been, I haven’t had this outlet to communicate sound bites lately, so I’ll drop them in here.

Jen (00:25:54)
Perfect.

Simon (00:25:54)
There’s three things that I’ve been thinking about science communication.

The first one is that science communication isn’t rocket science, it’s communicating rocket science, which is just as hard.
So that’d be my first tip is that science communication is difficult and it needs to be approached professionally and respected as a profession.
So that’s the first one, is science communication isn’t rocket science, it’s communicating rocket science. It’s just as hard.

The second tip or sound bite would be that science communicators aren’t saving the world. We’re helping the people saving the world, save the world.
So it’s an important, science communication is important by ensuring that the science has impact. So it’s a part of science. So we’re not saving the world, but we’re helping the people saving the world, save the world.

And the final sound bite would be that science communication isn’t the icing on the cake. But on the other hand, it’s not the whole cake either. It’s an essential ingredient in the cake.
So it’s got to be a part of how science is done. It’s there from the start and the cake won’t work if that ingredient isn’t part of it.
So the way science is done, the cake doesn’t have science communication coming at the end, it’s not the icing on the top. It’s there from the start and it’s an essential ingredient in how we do science.

So that would be my three tips, my three sound bites. And they’ll be available as a series of t-shirts at Scientell gift shop after the show.

Jen (00:27:19)
That is a really good analogy though, I think Simon.
Because I think it’s very, very easy for a lot of people to think that the communicating of the science is the icing on the cake.
You do the science and then later you go, “Oh gosh, we better communicate this to our stakeholders.”
But you’re absolutely right.
Unless it is there as a key ingredient from the very beginning, it’s never going to be as effective or as powerful as it could be.

Simon (00:27:41)
Yeah, you got to be part of the team.

Jen (00:27:43)
Well Simon, we are utterly delighted that you are part of our broader team. We feel very, very privileged to know you and to have seen your business go from strength to strength.
And yeah, I’m looking forward to the party invitation because 10 years of running your own business is really quite a milestone. So congratulations on everything that you’ve achieved.
And thank you again so much for making time to speak with us today. We’re really, very grateful.

Simon (00:28:08)
Thanks very much for having having me on the show, Jen and Michael.
Thanks for your great questions. That was really thought provoking.

Michael (00:28:10)
It’s been a pleasure, Simon.
And I’m really looking forward to that 10th birthday party because I’m expecting to see a science communication cake there now.

Jen (00:28:24)
And t-shirts. We’re only coming if there’s t-shirts.

Simon (00:28:27)
Yeah. Yeah. We’ve got a year to plan all those things. So yeah, we go into it.

Jen (00:28:32)
Thank you, Simon.

Michael (00:28:34)
Thanks Simon.

Simon (00:28:35)
Thanks. See ya.

Jen (00:28:55)
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Let’s Talk SciComm from the University of Melbourne Science Communication Teaching Team. I’m Associate Professor Jen Martin and my brilliant cohost is Dr Michael Wheeler.

Michael (00:29:09)
And if you’ve enjoyed listening to this episode, we’d love you to share it with your friends and family. We’d love you to share your favourite episode online. And you can find us at LetsTalkSciComm on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Jen (00:29:24)
And this season, we are asking for your help to spread the word so that more people find out about our podcast.
So if you enjoy listening, we would love you to tell a friend, but we’d also love you to think about taking a couple of minutes to write us a review.
Whatever platform you listen on, there will be a place for you to leave a review. And we’re going to keep track and award our favourite reviewees some prizes.
We’re thinking about some merch. And we’d also love to reward our favourite review with a free science communication workshop that we will run for you in person or online, depending on whereabouts you are.

Michael (00:29:59)
Ooh, prizes. And if… They sound great. And if you’d like to get in touch to suggest a guest or a future topic, we’d love to hear from you. Please email us at lets.talk.scicomm@gmail.com. And as always, a huge thank you to our production team Stephanie Wong and Steven Tang.