ABC Top 5 Science Residency, Week 1
An overview of my experience participating in the first week of the ABC Top 5 Science Residency program.
Top 5 Science Residents 2023. From left to right: Myself, Dr Rebecca Thistlethwaite, Dr Ellen Cottingham, Dr Rohan Fisher, Dr Lynn Nazareth
This week I spent some time at the ABC offices in Sydney, completing the first half of the Top 5 Science Residency program. The program is aimed at early career researchers to equip them “with career-long skills, knowledge and confidence to communicate with media and their audiences about their field of expertise”.
We spent a lot of this week focussing on communication and more specifically, communicating “our story”. This meant that I had to introduce myself and my research about a thousand times over the course of the week. While this might seem annoying from the outset, it actually forced me to really hear what I was saying. I talk about my work everyday, it’s part of my job, but I’ve never been so acutely aware of exactly what I was saying and why I was saying it that way.
In my day-to-day job I work and collaborate with people who generally work in my field or a similar field. This means that there is an assumed level of common knowledge. During this week, I’ve interacted with people from a range of backgrounds, completely different to my own. This meant that the usual vocabulary tools I use to talk about my work didn’t hold very well.
By the end of the week I was able to articulate my research in a more general and accessible way, but I do think there is still work to be done. One of the tools we explored throughout the week was the power of storytelling. Weaving ideas and concepts into an overarching story to captivate a listener. Two questions we were consistently asked were “why should people care about your work?” and “why should people care about your work NOW?”.
My research is interesting and significant to me, it’s why I have dedicated my career to it. But to someone else, the safety of human-machine teaming for robotics, autonomous systems and AI is neither interesting nor relevant to them. We explored the idea of reaching a general audience throughout the week, looking at it from both a voice and written perspective. We worked on how the use of storytelling can be a powerful tool for painting visual pictures of scenarios or issues, we practiced interviewing and being interviewed, working on both giving and receiving information and we delved a little into podcasting and the appeal of niche areas of interest.
Feedback was a big part of this week and for the voice activities we did have to listen back to audio recordings of ourselves. Listening to your own voice is never a fun experience, but it was a safe environment and the feedback we received was invaluable. It was both positive and constructive, focusing not just on what was being said but also how. We also had the opportunity to give each other feedback throughout the week. Receiving feedback from a fellow researcher who is not working directly in your field is a great way of gaining constructive advice that you may not have received within the siloed area of your own expertise.
We also got to experience some fun perks like touring the ABC studios, watching different shows be recorded and go live to air and meeting some wonderful people throughout the week. For me, one of the highlights has been the mentor aspect of the project. Each resident is assigned digital and audio mentors that work with you on both audio and written pieces. This is a great way to be able to work on your own piece, receiving guidance and feedback along the way.
Next week we start the online portion of the residency. I’ll be focussing on developing my written piece during that week which is something I’m really looking forward to. Writing is truly my passion so having the opportunity to develop and finesse my writing skills is something I’m very excited about.
