By Chelsie Boodoo, Life Science Communications Fellow
After numerous interviews where scientists kept getting too technical, I realized the pattern. Brilliant researchers would dive into methodological details, jargon-heavy explanations, and complex pathways within the first thirty seconds. Meanwhile, our listeners (people driving to work, making dinner, going about their lives) were tuning out before they even understood what problem was being solved.
The scientists weren’t bad communicators. They didn’t know how to shift gears for a different audience. So, I started coaching them before we went on air, helping them structure their explanations in ways that would actually land with the public.
That experience taught me something crucial about science communication. The barrier isn’t usually the complexity of the work. It’s that we’re asking scientists to translate in real time from a language they’ve been fluent in for years to one they rarely practice.