Episode 66 – Interview with Professor Jo Salmon

This week we had the great pleasure of speaking with Alfred Deakin Professor, Jo Salmon about the importance of effective science communication in research, especially when it comes to co-designed research.

Jo is the Director of the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN) at Deakin University and currently holds a NHMRC Level 2 Investigator Grant. She has spent the last 20 years conducting research on the development of effective programs to promote children’s physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviour. Jo has been a Chief Investigator on over 30 nationally funded research projects and 14 international projects worth more than $28.8 million and has supervised 26 PhD students to completion and 14 postdoctoral fellows. She has published her research extensively with over 450 peer reviewed papers and book chapters, and for the past 7 years has been named a Clarivate Highly Cited researcher, which ranks her in the 1% most cited authors in the world for her subject field. Jo is the past President and a Fellow of the International Society for Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, and the founding current President of the Asia Pacific Society for Physical Activity (ASPA). She also played a key role in development of movement guidelines for youth in Australia (2004; 2008; 2014).

You can follow Jo and learn more about her work here:

Transcript

Jen (00:00:00)
Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk SciComm, a podcast by the University of Melbourne Science Communication Teaching Team. I’m Associate Professor Jen Martin and my wonderful co-host is Dr Michael Wheeler and we believe that science isn’t finished until it’s communicated.

Jen (00:00:45)
Hello everybody and an enormously warm welcome to another episode of Let’s Talk SciComm.
I’m Jen, and as always I am joined by my wonderful friend and colleague Michael. G’day Michael.

Michael (00:00:59)
Hey Jen. I normally start off by saying I’m doing really good. But today we’ve actually got renovations occurring in the apartment next to us.
So I’m coming to you from an undisclosed location to escape the renovations, but feeling excited for today’s episode.

Jen (00:01:16)
Me too. I’m very excited. You’ve organised a very special guest for us today Michael.

Michael (00:01:20)
I have. And there seems to be a bit of a recurring theme here with people from the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Deakin University coming on the podcast.
And I think the last person that we had on from IPAN, which is the short name for our institute was actually Professor David Dunstan.
We were joking at the time I think that you know, the pressure was on me ’cause David’s my boss. Well, Jo is the director of the whole institute of IPAN so I really better not stuff up today.

Jen (00:01:53)
No, no pressure, Michael.

Michael (00:01:55)
No pressure.
So for the listeners, Jo is a world-renowned expert in child and youth physical activity and sedentary behaviour.
And I checked recently Jo and you’ve got 475 papers that you’ve published and you’ve regularly been recognised as a highly cited researcher as well.
For the listeners, Jo’s played a key role in developing national child and youth physical activity recommendations in Australia, is a previous member of the strategic advisory network for the development of the Global Action Plan on Physical Activity, World Health Organisation and is also a founding member and president of the Asia Pacific Society for Physical Activity of which I am also a member.
[It’s] no surprise then that Jo has been successful at securing millions of dollars of funding and has been supported by external research fellowships for more than 20 years.
So Jo, I’m sure there’s a lot of contributing factors to your success that we would do well to try and emulate. But there is something that we do have in common Jo that gives me hopes for success in the future.

Jo (00:02:59)
Oh yes?

Michael (00:03:00)
Which is our choice of breakfast, peanut butter and sliced tomato on toast.

Jen (00:03:05)
My goodness. Is that why I haven’t had, why I don’t have 475 papers?
‘Cause I don’t eat peanut butter and tomato for breakfast.

Michael (00:03:12)
It could be… No, I don’t think anyone’s ever done a study on it. But you know, for years I’ve been telling people that I’m a big fan of peanut butter… and tomato on toast.

Jo (00:03:19)
It’s so good.

Michael (00:03:21)
It is, it is. And I tell people why they should try it.
And you know, I want them to report back to me afterwards of course. And they always, I always expect them to say “That’s absolutely delicious, Michael”. But they always say “it didn’t taste as weird as it sounded”.
So I was very relieved to, to see I was in good company when I noticed you were having peanut butter with tomato on toast, Jo.

Jo (00:03:47)
I… Absolutely and also Vegemite and avocado.

Michael (00:03:51)
Yes, that’s a, that’s another good combination that I also like.
So Jo, I guess to start off, I’d really like us to go back a little bit and if you could take us back to talk a little bit about your background and how you became interested in physical activity and health.

Jo (00:04:07)
Sure. So I started working in the fitness industry years ago. I was studying psychology at the time, very interested in understanding why people do what they do or don’t do what they should do and working to pay my way through uni as a lot of our students do, and was really blown away by some of the complete transformations that I witnessed in people.
You know, a lot of mum and dad members, it wasn’t one of those you know, high powered pro, you know, really all about the look. It was very very very much a very homely type of family type of gym.
I used to do the health checks which was you know, fitness testing, programming, running aerobic classes or exercise music classes. So did the whole gamut.
And, but I saw so many people come through our doors often feeling you know, they often had a low self-esteem or you know, didn’t feel happy about their bodies or their health or whatever it was. And just see you know, as they got fitter and stronger and just seeing that transformation of the shoulders coming back, the chin coming up, the glow in them. And I just was blown away and I really became a true believer.
I’d always been active myself but I was you know, I was in dance and did some sport and stuff but I wasn’t fanatical. But I worked in the fitness industry for 15 years so it ended up being a long, a long career.
And then I think marrying that with my psychology background I ended up doing my honours in psychology on exercise adherence ’cause what also fascinated me was that they might come for three months and they, and you see this transformation.
And then they drop out and it was really frustrating. You know, why did they not maintain their membership? What is it about exercise adherence that people were dropping out?
And so I did my honours in that and I wasn’t able to find any expertise in exercise adherence or in those days, that’s what it was called at La Trobe Uni which was where I was doing my honours in psych.
And but I did have a wonderful… Eleanor Wertheim who ran for years the eating disorder clinic at La Trobe and she was my supervisor and she was great. And she guided me through it and that was my very, she helped me, very much helped me publish my very, my first paper which was on exercise adherence and gym attendance. And really it launched from there.
And then I did have a bit of a break, a family break and had children and a bit of a gap. And then I saw there was a PhD advertised in physical activity at Deakin. And I thought Wow, okay. That, that sounds like a good fit.
And exercise adherence is one of the the key terms that they were promoting. So I thought Oh well, I’ve done you know, my honours in that and published in it.
And so anyway, Neville Owen was, was the head of school at the time, the new head of school. We were human, School of Human Movement at that time at Deakin. And I got the scholarship.
So that’s really I think then what launched my career and that was the PhD ended up being in epidemiology. So I went from psychology which is a very, a great discipline that teaches you understanding from a theoretical perspective, great stats. You know, some really good foundations.
But then to epidemiology which is moving much more to population level. How do we get whole populations moving? How do we understand the barriers and [facilitate] ways to intervene and all the rest of it.
So that’s sort of what really got me going, I think working in the fitness industry in the beginning and studying psychology and then sort of bringing that together and then moving into a PhD.

Michael (00:07:24)
Hmm, yeah that’s, that’s great. Very interesting that you use the word transformational with your early experience.
And I can tell that’s something that’s maybe really resonated with you based on one of the later projects, larger scale projects on promoting physical activity and reducing sedentary behavior, the TransformUs project which I think is a bit of a flagship project in your career.
Can you give us a bit of an overview of what that piece of work is?

Jo (00:07:53)
Yeah. So way back in 2008, so after I finished my PhD, which was really focusing on adult’s sedentary behaviour and physical activity. My colleague and boss at the time David Crawford said, “You know, I think you should move into children”. There’s huge gaps in… In Australia, there’s a lot of people like Adrian Bowman and Neville and others that were doing adult physical activity. But not much was happening in children’s physical activity in Australia at the time.
This is back in the early 2000s. And so I thought, “OK well, I’ll shift you know, population groups and, and you know, I managed to get a grant, NHMRC grant in 2008, which was testing whether or not the health impacts of reducing children sitting versus promoting movement or a combination of the two compared to usual practice and looked at whether or not just reducing children’s… No one had looked at this, you know, we’re just reducing their sedentary time, whether that actually benefited otherwise healthy children’s healthy weight gain over a two and half year period.
And also you know, where there are other benefits in relation to activity levels. And we actually did find that there were quite significant impacts or benefits to children’s healthy weight gain over that two and half year trial.
It’s a movement based program in schools. We have teachers delivering active pedagogy. They’re normal lessons, science, maths, English, whatever it is. And also changing environments. So recess, lunch and in the classroom, providing all those opportunities for movement.
And I think my psych background often comes in, cause you know, ecological psychology was a passion for me. Your physical environment dictates the majority of your behaviour. If you walk into a, a lecture theatre and there’s all these chairs and rows of desks, you’re going to sit down. If you walk in and it’s, it’s got a different arrangement, maybe with standing tables. Of course, you know, it makes such a difference to your behaviour.
So that was some of the, the theoretical underpinning that we took to the program. And it’s now been running for 15 years. We had NHMRC funding to do a scale up across Victoria. We’re reaching over 500 schools now In Victoria. We’re piloted in Tassie and we’re now at that stage of taking it national and into secondary schools and all abilities.
So it’s just sort of become a bit of a juggernaut. But yeah, the TransformUs I think was more of a play on words in relation to Transformers, which at the time in, in the 2000s…

Michael (00:10:08)
Oh, right.

Jo (00:10:11)
Was that, you know, Transformers was a big thing for kids, you know, in school.
So that was what the whole intention was. It was a bit of a play on words.

Jen (00:10:18)
I wonder how many of the kids today still have any idea about Transformers, or whether that’s just totally left the you know, left popular culture.

Jo (00:10:24)
I don’t know.
Good question.

Jen (00:10:27)
Oh, it’s such a good program though. I mean, I think a lot about my kids and, and what you know, how they spend their days. They’re both super active, do a lot of sport outside of school.
But you know what do they do inside school? And of course, COVID had a huge impact and suddenly they weren’t walking to and from school anymore. They were getting up and going onto their screens to do their schoolwork.

Jo (00:10:48)
Yeah and playing just you know, playing with their friends at recess and lunch and yeah, it really did impact, COVID really impacted kids’ activity levels in Australia and Victoria particularly.

Jen (00:11:00)
Yeah, I was just so glad we had a trampoline because it became the way we had breaks from study. You know, “I’m finishing a lecture at this time. If you finish class let’s go and jump on the trampoline together.” That was kind of a way to spend time but…

Jo (00:11:11)
Absolutely.

Jen (00:11:12)
Jo, one of the things I’m really interested in… Michael knows I’ve got a lot of interest in the sort of research that you do at IPAN. And I know one of the things that’s a really important part of your research is this idea of co-design.
And it’s something I don’t know a lot about. So my background is in ecology so you can’t really co-design studies when you’re working with animals. They’re not really very good at telling you you know, what they think is important.
But you know, across all disciplines it strikes me that this idea that scientists always know the best way to go about coming up with questions and answering those questions. You know, that seems pretty arrogant and pretty misguided. But obviously that’s how most research has always been done.
So I love this idea of you collaborating with particular people and organisations outside of science to try and work out what do we want to know here and how can we find that out.
I’d love to hear from you a bit more about how do you go about co-designing research. I’m imagining that there’s a lot of great opportunities to do better research but I’m guessing it’s also quite hard.

Jo (00:12:14)
I don’t know that it’s hard. I think it’s just a different framing of your development of your research, depending on what the question is. And if it’s an intervention or a program then it’s a no-brainer that the people who are going to be the target of that initiative should actually guide what it is and what it looks like and that it would help and make sense for them.
The whole notion of co-design is fabulous but as you say Jen if it’s with animals… I mean I guess it depends too, perhaps there’s, perhaps there’s elements of the system that you’re engaging with in relation to animals, that could be where co-design comes in.
And one of the things IPAN’s been doing over the last couple of years is developing or establishing a consumer network. And the idea of that network is we have people from, representing all different stages of life with different issues and needs that can help our scientists to do this.
It might not always be co-design but certainly engagement in the science at all stages. So at the beginning, in the middle and at the end. So you know, if you get [the] results of a study and you’ve had your consumers involved in the study throughout.
At the end it’s like well, what’s the best way that we should share this information? What makes sense? You know, in the middle it might be you know, problem solving, perhaps some particular issues in the beginning of course. That could be some of those design elements.

Michael (00:13:34)
Yeah, it’s really interesting. And I’ve started, since moving to IPAN it’s really kind of come on my radar and I’ve started using it in, when I’ve been running workshops on science communication you know as an example.
This is a, an important direction that research is heading in and this is a reason why you need to be an effective communicator.
So Jo, from someone who has done it then and has experience in this. What have you learned about the role of being an effective communicator when you’re discussing research with these different groups?
What advice would you have to say someone who’s listening, who’s interested in maybe getting involved in a little bit more co-design in their own work?

Jo (00:14:16)
Well I guess to me co-design and communication while they can be related are also maybe a little different. But I think if you are communicating about your work and depending on the audience, simple would be my number one. Simplify it. If you can’t break it down simply, and I think this was a, often early career researchers, myself included, suffer from this. It’s often a sign to me that perhaps you don’t understand it yourself and I”m talking about me here.
So I think if you can, and I think with experience and understanding you can break things down into really simple concepts and so it’s clear to people. Sometimes scientists tend to hide behind making things complicated ’cause they probably are struggling to communicate it to be really honest.
So I think simple and you know really… and explaining what the intent is and the purpose. But also from the perspective of the individuals you know, what are they after? What goals and objectives do they have?
In fact, we had a launch last week of our secondary school program in South Australia. And we had our South Australian stakeholders on the call. And we started it actually by saying to them “What are your goals and objectives for adolescents in, in South Australia?” You know, this was government departments and things were on the call. “What are you trying to achieve for adolescents in South Australia?”
And so we got them to talk first and tell us what their goals and objectives were so that we can try and find a shared and common purpose. And hopefully then we can sort of say “Well we can help you address some of these things.” You know, reducing inequity, wellbeing of the students, mental health’s huge issues obviously for adolescents in Australia. So I think you know, trying to find a shared and common purpose is also really important.

Jen (00:16:00)
Hmm. Absolutely, I mean that’s the whole point right? That we want to have win-win for both of the parties involved.
But Jo, listening to you it’s really interesting because some of the things you’re talking about, you know, are things that we teach as essential characteristics of effective communication.
So things like being really clear on the goal and the purpose. Understanding your audience. What are they invested in? What do they care about? How can you best serve them? How can you craft a message that will resonate with them? All about kind of relationship building. You know, these are all really important facets of communication.
But they don’t generally get taught to people studying science. So what I’d love to hear more about – is this something that you’ve learned on the job? Is this something that you’ve learned by collaborating with people with different backgrounds? You know, in interdisciplinary teams. Like where have you developed this knowledge because it’s actually not as common as we might want it to be I think among, among researchers in science.

Jo (00:16:54)
I think it has been experience, hits and misses or misses and hits. You know, being… I can remember a few mortifying meetings with government for instance where you know, really missed the mark and just walking out going “Oh, that was just terrible”, you know. And you can just see their faces, just their eyes are almost rolling in the back of their head.
And so you know, I guess over the years learning some of these things. But we also, IPAN employs a stakeholder engagement manager. She’s been with us for over eight years and it’s just fabulous.
So her whole position is about helping us maintain relationships with our key stakeholders but she also you know, we have a committee and we have a shadowing program.
So we’re actually, we actually are training our scientists, our early career researchers in how to effectively engage with stakeholders, how to affect… And communication is a key part of that, how you build the relationships.
And I think too often in the past, you do your research then you say “Oh, I better meet with those people now and just give them the results.” You know what I mean? And there’s been no bringing them along the journey. There’s no shared, you know. And so those days are gone. We just can’t do that anymore.

Michael (00:18:07)
Yeah, yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. And I think you know, IPAN’s put in some great initiatives around encouraging scientists to engage in communicating to various different audiences.
But I’d love to get your thoughts on from your perspective as a senior leader on the, the system, the broader system that we work in in general, and whether you think the the system that we work in is doing enough to encourage and reward scientists to build those skills because oftentimes it means scientists taking away time from their research to you know, do a public talk or write a blog or start a podcast or whatever it might be.
And I think there are scientists that still think you know what, the most important thing is to do research and publish papers and everything else is, is a distraction. So yeah, love to get your thoughts on the, kind of the system that we’re working in and how that relates to science communication.

Jo (00:19:04)
Yeah, I think you’re totally right Michael. I don’t think it has really been factored into the full circle of research or the cycle of research or even doesn’t necessarily mean it’s coming at a particular point linearly but it certainly hasn’t really been factored in.
And look, we do have quite a number of researchers who have very openly said to me over the years when we’ve had media opportunities or you know, other opportunities to present “I really don’t feel comfortable doing that”.
And so there’s a lot of scientists introvert, introverts and, and it doesn’t come naturally. But I think it’s finding their comfort space. And I know I’m not really answering your question about [the] system but I think you know, having, having a supportive system that values communication as part of the science journey I think would be really great.
What does that look like though? We try to put support and resources in place and support structures in place in our institute. But across the university, it is variable. We’ve run media training for instance in the past if you’re talking to media.
But beyond that, there’s not really a lot of embedded training or support mechanisms for things like blogs or other forms of communication. Even… I mean, presentations for science and I still you know, even with my team have to pull them up sometimes and I say, “This is for this audience. You’re talking like a scientist, you’ve got to remove these words from your presentation. You’ve got to remove these words”, you know. Because they’re still trying to speak as scientists and not when you talk to a lay audience I’m talking about.
So you really do, I think we do need better training. Maybe it’s at the PhD or undergraduate level where you guys are doing that. But I think it’s invaluable because it isn’t something that’s innate. In fact, we almost train it out of them in the beginning because you hide behind the science right?

Jen (00:20:56)
Well Jo, we’d be very happy for you to share our podcast with any of your researchers.
That’s what we’ve done is try and make that training you know, accessible in a, in an easy low time investment way.

Jo (00:21:06)
Yeah.

Michael (00:21:07)
Yeah. And I guess the other, the other kind of powerful motivator for researchers are what funding bodies say they want. So you know, as someone who’s kind of been in that system for a while and being successful at securing funding, how have you kind of seen the guidelines of you know, these funding bodies change? And you know, I know that they include a bit of an emphasis now on engagement metrics.
Yeah, so I mean maybe that’s part of the answer. Yeah. Curious to hear your thoughts on the change that you’ve seen there so far and you know, where do you think it’s going in the future or needs to go in the future?

Jo (00:21:46)
Yeah, I think there’s been an increased recognition about impact and impact of your work and what difference you’re making. And so impact increasingly is being measured in more creative ways and I think, which is good. Not just is your paper cited in some policy document but you know, in other ways.
That whole need for consumer engagement has certainly increased. Like some of the schemes like the MRFF, the Medical Research Future Fund. You know, you absolutely have to have consumers involved in your work.
And then yeah, I think from a funding perspective, dissemination, they’re still pretty open. They don’t really dictate what they expect but you do sort of put down… I think most researchers still put down the old ‘present at scientific conferences and we’ll publish papers’.
Not many would be saying well I’m going to write a blog that’s going to reach this many practitioners nationally or whatever it is, which I think we should be doing more of but I haven’t seen funding bodies really looking for that yet.

Jen (00:22:45)
Well, hopefully it’s coming.

Jo (00:22:49)
Totally.

Jen (00:22:50)
Jo, the other thing that strikes me listening to you is you know, clearly you’ve had a really diverse career and now you have really risen to the pinnacle. You direct a very large and successful research institute.
So for some of the early career scientists listening to this podcast, what are your…? You know, what advice would you share with people who are really aspiring to become leaders in the world of science? And I guess particularly you know, as a very senior woman in science. Yeah, what are your thoughts?

Jo (00:23:22)
I think you know, there’s a lot of great early career researcher resources out there to help advise. But just my experience with over the years has really been making sure you identify early what you want to be known for, keeping your focus.
And I think so many people attempted to chase the dollar and I think that then dilutes your impact and dilutes the effect you know, what you’re able to achieve.
So I guess I’ve tried to really maintain focus over many years and not sort of chase the dollar and this shiny thing and this shiny thing ’cause I think that does dilute then your impact.
And I think follow your passion. You know, making sure that that focus and passion are there. I think they’re the main things.
And there’s a whole lot of other stuff for early career researchers, about learning to say no and not jumping on every opportunity that comes along. But that’s, a lot of that you know, a lot of that you need to experience in some ways yourself to sort of realize Oh, I’m never doing that again or I’m never working with them again.
 And look, we all have, we’ve all done that but I think what do you want to be known for? What’s your passion? And what impact do you want to make? I think they’re key ones for me.

Jen (00:24:31)
Great advice.

Michael (00:24:33)
I think it’s great advice. I think a lot of people working in academia would do well to just say no a little bit more just on general principle.
It can be very easy to get distracted by shiny things so it’s great advice there you know. Maybe it’s about replacing novelty with nuance and rather than kind of chasing lots of new things maybe you can kind of dig into some of the things you’ve already done and kind of develop nuance in that respect.

Jo (00:25:03)
And in psychology, one of the things that that taught me very early days was the “So what?” question. So everything you achieve and you go, so what? We found this, we published that paper, so what?
Then you sort of get, you keep pushing yourself to the point where well, I’ve, we’ve changed this policy, we’ve changed this practice, so we’ve had this impact.
Then you know, if your so what’s become more substantial and more you know, significant. That’s also I think another way. Just that simple, those simple 2 words. Just keep asking yourself with things that you’re doing. So what? What’s, what’s the effect of this?

Michael (00:25:38)
Yeah. We kind of give the advice to students that asking yourself why you’re doing something.
It’s like you know, channelling your inner child. You know, like a 5 year old who’s always asking “But why? But why?” You know?
So yeah, asking yourself, OK, I’ve done this piece of work. So what? What does it mean in the bigger context? I think is a, is a great piece of advice.

Jo (00:25:53)
Exactly.
Yeah.

Michael (00:25:56)
And you know, we’re so glad that you said yes to this opportunity, Jo.
And we’ve come to the time now where we’re moving to the last phase of the podcast, which we’re shifting gears a little bit.
Didn’t warn you about this, but we’ve got some light hearted questions that we just like to round out the uhh, the interview with.

Michael (00:26:25)
So the first one that I would like to ask is: If you had to pick an alternative career to what you’re doing now, what would it be?

Jo (00:26:38)
Astronomy.

Jen (00:26:39)
Ooh. I love it.

Michael (00:26:39)
OK. Oh wow.

Jen (00:26:42)
We’re not allowed to ask you for more details sadly.
But I like, I like the answer.

Jo (00:26:48)
And I’d be terrible at it cause I couldn’t do physics.

Jen (00:26:52)
Don’t you just get to like look in a telescope and go “Ooh, amazing!”

Michael (00:26:56)
It’s certainly a hot topic at the moment with the uhh James Webb Space Telescope.
So yeah, I like it.

Jen (00:27:02)
Indeed.

Jo (00:27:01)
I’m a, I’m a sci-fi nerd.

Jen (00:27:06)
Well, I hope you feel right at home with us, then.

Michael (00:27:09)
You’re in good company.

Jen (00:27:10)
Question number 2: How would you describe your work in three words?

Jo (00:27:16)
Well, my work is, is getting children moving.

Jen (00:27:20)
Oh, that’s great.

Michael (00:27:20)
Great. Yeah, I like it.
It’s a nice bumper sticker message there.
That’s great.

Michael (00:27:27)
You know by now Jo, that we’ve, we like food on this podcast. We were talking about our peanut butter on toast at the start for breakfast.
But now it’s dinner time. You’re hosting a dinner party Jo. You can invite along one scientist, living or from history. Who would it be and why?

Jo (00:27:46)
Oh Gee. It’d have to be Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Michael (00:27:51)
Hmm. Yeah, that’s…

Jen (00:27:53)
So you can nerd out on astronomy together.

Jo (00:27:54)
Yeah, I follow him on Instagram.

Michael (00:27:58)
Yeah. I wonder ’cause, you know, sometimes he does tours and comes to Melbourne.
Yeah, I recently went to see Brian Greene, who’s kind of similar, a similar kind of communicator in the astronomy space. But I’d love to see…

Jo (00:28:11)
I’ve seen Brian Cox too. He was great.

Michael (00:28:13)
Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah.

Jen (00:28:16)
Michael, now you know what to get Jo for a Christmas present if you see any tickets out there.

Michael (00:28:21)
I’ll keep my eyes peeled.

Jen (00:28:24)
OK Jo, next question.
Do you have any advice to share on achieving work life balance?

Jo (00:28:31)
I think make sure that you keep active, obviously. Grab those opportunities for looking after your health. And I’m a regular meditator. I try and walk as much as I can. Exercising as well as doing the family and friends thing, making sure you prioritize those.
So I think that work-life balance is really critical. I hate to think people are sort of working in labs all weekends and things like that. I just don’t think that’s, that’s good.
And in fact, I think a lot of research has shown that you can actually be more productive in a shorter period of time by giving yourself that brain, that break than just sitting there for hours and not moving and not distracting and doing other things.

Michael (00:29:13)
Yeah, excellent advice. It’s, it’s, I can’t remember the name of the term.
But it’s like yeah, the time that you dedicate to a task.
That task will just swell to a you know, fill up all the time that you set aside for it, so…

Jen (00:29:26)
It’s Parkinson’s law.

Michael (00:29:27)
There you go, Parkinson’s law.

Jo (00:29:28)
Aha. I like it.

Michael (00:29:31)
Yeah. All right Jo, last question.
And you’ve given us some great advice already. So I’d love to know for the last piece of advice, what would be your top tip for building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders?

Jo (00:29:45)
Regular contact and following up, making sure you, if you say you’re going to do something, you do it and you follow up, you close the loop.

Michael (00:29:55)
Yeah, I think a really important message. It’s not you know, a tokenistic thing and it’s something that it’s kind of a longer term commitment. So regular contact really really speaks to that idea.
Well, we have come to the end of the podcast Jo.

Jo (00:30:10)
Great.

Michael (00:30:11)
The time has flown by. Thank you so much for taking time to speak to us today.

Jo (00:30:16)
Thank you both and great to meet you Jen and…

Jen (00:30:18)
Thank you so much Jo.
That was a really wonderful conversation.

Jo (00:30:22)
Great! I loved it.
It was really, really fun to talk about and good luck with your podcast.

Jen (00:30:27)
Thank you. And we can’t wait to read the next 475 papers.

Jo (00:30:29)
Oh, that’s just a sign of my age, that’s all that is.

Jen (00:30:34)
No, it’s a sign of doing really important, useful and impactful work.

Jo (00:30:38)
Thanks guys.

Jen, Michael (00:30:41)
Thanks Jo.

Michael (00:30:59)
Thanks for listening and thanks also to our wonderful production team, Stephanie Wong and Steven Tang for making these episodes happen behind the scenes. And thanks also to you, our listeners, for your support.
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