 Hello, everyone, and welcome to the National Human Genome Research Institute's fifth event in our genomics and the media series. I'm Sarah Bates. I'm the NHGRI Communications Chief. I'm excited to give a very short introduction today and introduce our distinguished guest and our moderator. Today's topic is about how to use new media, particularly podcasting, to reach different audiences. And for those of you who don't know, podcasting and podcasts are episodic audio files designed for download or for streaming. They've exploded in popularity over the last 15 years or so. They are one of the most recently developed online tools that science communicators use more and more to share stories and really target different audiences. While this medium was initially sort of had a reputation as a low production quality basement made type of vehicle, it is now a very well respected craft. And a lot of work goes into creating a very dynamic podcast. There are thousands of podcasts available on many different platforms, and I'm sure many of you have your favorites. And if you haven't already listened to the podcast made by our host today, you'll have a new favorite. Each audio segment must hook and keep listeners, making them feel they are hearing a friend talk about a cool subject. It's really an art and a craft. Takes planning, technical know-how, tight messaging, and a lot of charm by the hosts. Fortunately, our guest here today is an expert in this and many other areas. Dr. Elizabeth Wayne is assistant professor of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University and co-host of the PhD, PH Dimas podcast. She will discuss her journey with science communication and shared communication steps such as her advice to fail early, which I love to learn and get better. We have her and our moderator, Alyssa Jones, to here to answer your questions for the next hour. Just to give you a little bit more context about this series. Today's event is one that features trailblazers at Trailblazer in Science, talking about their craft with someone here at Azure Eye. We've had several such experts in the last few months. Part of the goal for today is to take questions from your audience and to answer them live. We will answer as many questions as we can, those we cannot. Please go ahead and still tweet them out on social or drop them in the Q&A in Zoom. Each guest we've had has been an expert in communicating about genomics across media from preprints to podcasting to everything in between. Our goal with the series is to talk about different ways of communicating about the fast-paced field of genomics to give you behind the scenes stories about breaking news and as well to discuss the unique challenges and opportunities each medium can bring. We've had an amazing lineup for the series. Our previous guest was Dorothy Roberts. Our next guest will be Joe Palca in March, still determining a date for Joe, but we'll get one up there and the series will run through May. The previous events, if you miss them, are all available for viewing on our YouTube channel. And I highly recommend that they're very excellent, completely unbiased. And now it is my pleasure to introduce Elizabeth Wayne, who is the co-host of the podcast about academia, culture and social justice across the STEM community's divide, PhDs. She has a PhD in biomedical engineering and a bachelor's in physics. She's been featured in Super Cool Scientist, a women in science coloring book, which is one of the best CV entries I've ever seen. And our moderator is Alyssa Jones, an HGRI public affairs lead, who joined us from the Peace Corps and ran public relations for the New York City fashion scene before that. So, you know, she knows how to ask tough questions. So I will turn it over to you, Alyssa. Thanks, Sarah. Dr. Wayne, we're so excited to have you here. It's amazing to get to have this chance to discuss with you about your background and about podcasting and science communication from someone who has really honed their craft. And I know has a ton of really amazing things to share with us. So thanks for taking a bit of a break from your assistant professorship and joint faculty appointment in biomedical engineering and chemical engineering, which as someone without as much of a science background sounds extremely difficult and like many years of training and learning. So I'd love for you to kind of give us a little bit more of an introduction into who you are and how you got to where you're at. Who am I? That sounds very existential. So before you you see this picture, this person who helped make this podcast. I am Elizabeth Wayne. I'm an assistant professor. I am really interested in science. So a long term science fan and science nerd who just loved answering questions and just kept asking questions and asking questions and fortunately is still being allowed to do so. So I'm very excited to do that. I have an obsession with macrophages. I have a favorite immune cell. They're all nice. They all protect me, but I like one of them in particular. And I somehow decided to spend the rest of my life trying to think about how I can make therapies that are based around that. And then how did I get here? Well, I think I have the story that everyone sort of has and how they they got here is you just kept going around and playing tinker around with things. But today I want to talk about podcasting and let's say, how did I get to making this PhD this podcast? So a picture that you see right now is me with with more hair, obviously. Some I think all of us can relate to having a good hair day and a good picture. And you just hold on to that picture. No matter what, like I'm going to be 80 and that's going to be the picture I use. But you'll see me with my co-host, Dr. Zayn Yao, and at this time we were both graduate students at Cornell University. I was finishing my PhD in biomedical engineering and she was actually studying English literature. And we both worked in. We both worked as graduate resident fellows in the door. We lived with the undergrads and we spent a lot of time talking with them about really diverse topics. And it got to the point where we just started thinking all we do is talk. We just love talking, we know lots of random factoids. Why don't we put it in the podcast? Just like kind of cohesively put that together. And we didn't know what we were doing, but we actually had some one who kind of knew how to help us. And so he helped us by getting us our logo and then actually he helped us by getting us this little zoom recorder that I'm using for you today, my very first podcast recording device, full circle today. I love it. A little bit of a vintage podcast moment. So vintage. So vintage. So, yeah. And then it just started from there. We went from having conversations in person and at in the dining halls at bars, because where are we going to go to complain? To let's actually record this, because maybe these are conversations we're having and if they were having, they're probably also we're fearing. Mm hmm. I think let's back up just a little bit because there's so much that I want to ask you and cover, but I think maybe let's start kind of foundationally and like, why podcasting? Like, why this audio medium? Um, it was really well suited to someone who just wanted to talk and to have, you know, an actual long discursive conversation. And I think that it was coming at a time. We started this in 2015 where there was podcasting was big, almost big, but it was still kind of niche and it felt safe to do that. Sometimes people talk about how afraid they are to make a podcast. They're afraid of really putting their ideas out there as a scientist. And the really interesting thing about podcasting is it's really hard to control because you have to actually listen to the whole thing to find like a bit to even take out of it. And then you got to find someone who knows how to clip digital audio to get that one little tweet and like that one little thing that can be buzzworthy. So it's, um, it felt like a safe space and it fit the format of trying to have conversations. Yeah, it kind of gives you that like wall, um, of safety, but also feels like you're still in someone's living room and really providing kind of that casual conversation. And I feel like so many people need, um, and one, especially with something like science, which can be sometimes very technical and difficult to break down, um, for everyone to understand. So like when you're thinking about that as someone who works in very technical fields, what are some ways or tips and tricks of how do you address some of those fears of how do you share your information? Yeah, this is interesting because I think a lot of this goes back to we're thinking about practice and how you cultivate your own voice and ideas. Um, one thing which I think was captured on the slide, it's might, the next slide, which might go to the idea of podcasting. Like that. Audio is also really natural format because people listen to podcasts when they're walking, they listen to them while they're working. Certainly one of the ways that we started thinking about the podcast format was when we were, um, Zion was doing something on the radio. And then she, um, she was doing something on the radio and I was in between my experiments. And so I had time to listen in between doing experiments. And I wish is messaging her, Hey, I think you should be talking about this. You should be talking about this. And I can hear a phone going off because she didn't turn off her ring tone. So I'm like, oh, Zion, turn off your ring tone, but also say that right? But it's such a natural thing. And so we often think about in presentations, we think about how, um, so much of those things you say are visual or audio and thinking about how you use all that space. And so there was some really interesting data that I kind of found about where listeners draw their meaning from. And this isn't about podcasting particularly, but when you think about how 7% of things are words, but then we catch a lot of things from tone and inflection. And then I'm thinking everyone's heard the stat of how like over half of our, uh, communication is body language, right? And so some of those things are visual, right? Body language is visual. Let's say, but you still have access to a whole other 40% of things that can really be caught on to you, that you can engage with, that we definitely catch things from tone. I think we definitely know when someone's mad or upset or when there's a pregnant pause, or you might even argue that some body language things are interpreted audibly as well, because you can kind of do sounds of movement. And so I think it's a really interesting space to take advantage of where people might multitask or think about these kinds of interactions. Um, so podcasting is not something that should be overlooked because a lot of people use podcasting for entertainment, but also for information, because at the end of the day, people aren't going to read the 1500 page report. They're going to read, they're going to listen to that 30 minute clip for better or worse, for misinformation or for solid information. They're going to get their information from this. And I do think it's important that people, um, see that how legitimate podcasting is and how people use it. Yeah. I know I totally agree with that. I think about when I'm listening to podcasts and I'm doing 14 different things, but I feel like that information like really seeps in. And, you know, when we're having discussions with friends or other colleagues, I'm like, oh yeah, I heard this on this podcast or actually I was listening to this on this podcast. It's way more common in conversation now than before, or even sometimes more common. Then I read this in, you know, this morning. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, um, as a professor, you know, that why are you citing Wikipedia? Stop citing Wikipedia. Like get a real reference. And now we're like, actually, Wikipedia has some interesting, you know, it's vetted, right? People start to change their mind about it. And podcasting is definitely, definitely in that territory. So Alyssa, another question you asked me was about how do you start developing your podcasting voice or maybe you're a scientist and you're thinking I'd like to do something like that. And I think that I want to respect and acknowledge that people do have challenges with trying to approach science. Right. That that it's not easy. And a lot of times, I'm sorry, a comment that I will hear when people talk about me is, oh, no, no, but you're different. You know, you're you're kind of like, you're just a natural speaker. And it's like, it is true that I am a I'm a minister's child. I'm a preacher's kid. So I may have a proclivity to knowing how not to stop talking. But the reality is that some of these things come from practice. And that you just have to practice and you have to let yourself experiment with words and you have to try and you can't get anywhere if you don't try. So opportunities for science communication start when you start your own clock, not not at any other kind of stage. And I think that actually more important thing would be who value science communication. How do you feel about communicating science? Because what I do know is that a lot of people seem to think that if I start communicating science, I'm not a real scientist. And no, people really don't want to break that line as if there's an actual line. And that can be a barrier for some people to get started. So I like this image in particular because I would like the people in this webinar to really think about this. And like, what do they see when they see this picture? And, you know, it's a bit rhetorical and, you know, you can't get there's no chat box, not like a real class. But the reality is, you know, she's communicating science. She's giving, she's at a poster and I'm assuming it's she, let's assume. And she's talking about science, right? But who's to say that this is not also like a science communicator as well as like a scientist who's talking about her science? What is the actual difference here? What if the person, what what actually makes this person go from being a scientist who's communicating her work to a science communicator? Would it be who the audience is? Would it matter if this person who she's speaking to is, let's say, a colleague from another university or, I don't know, a lay person from the street, would that matter? Whether they were a high school student, is that the difference? Because that's a difference. But if you notice the research of the stuff you're talking about is the same, then it it's really not as big of an economy as people make it. So I think it's kind of interesting in the same, right? They can be one in the same. And I actually spent a lot of time in my career thinking about ways that they can be the same. Because when I was an undergraduate, I did realize that people who spoke well got their research is better received, and it was like really helpful to communicate and get opportunities to talk more and often talking more meant talking with people who could give you, you know, access to graduate graduate programs or talking about like there was some actual benefits to being able to speak and speak well. So I started valuing those kinds of things and trying to become better at them. But I also enjoyed this because it helped me engage with the research and feel included and feel like I got why I was doing it because I was doing the mental work of trying to to think about this. And so I think there's another slide in here that I kind of wanted to point out that being a good science communicator also takes time. It takes. It takes a lot of thinking. And so on the top of this iceberg, what I did was I kind of highlighted the things in academia that people usually assume. Oh, this person is doing a good job, right? We really care in academia and scientists about where you went to school. I always like mentioning that I'm from Mississippi because a lot of people have never met someone from Mississippi. And I'm I have I'm proud. But I also didn't undergrad in physics. And then I did a PhD in engineering and I went to the School of Pharmacy to study more about nanoparticles. And if you look at the top graph, it would look as if the only time I'd ever try to, I guess, communicate science to an audience that wasn't directly other scientists. It would be 2017 when I did my Ted Fellowship. But the reality is that I spent a lot of time trying to learn how to communicate different ideas to people or trying to think about, like, what's my sense of humor? And like, why can't I have humor when I'm talking? And so thinking about how, like, oh, well, as a college student, I actually did lead this race dialogue project. And I think it's safe to say that nothing makes people feel more complicated than talking about race. But how do you do that with different groups of people? And how do you become a moderator for discussions that can be either tense or just confusing to people? I actually did teach in a high school as a Mollah's Access Science Fellow and I taught physics. And so that was definitely something where I was now trying to teach high school students things that I was just, you know, kind of reconceptualizing as a senior. I organized a conference for undergraduate women in physics. And that definitely took a lot of now. How do I then talk about why physics is so cool? But I'm talking to this larger audience of of of undergraduate women. I participate in workshops and these are things that were just like weekend things are offered in graduate school. And I said, oh, let's try it. I did the podcast, which really was like. When no one was really listening, I'm just opportunities to talk. And so I want to highlight that a lot of those things happened where I got to what I think what I call like failful adding make it up, but fail fast or I got to experiment where the stakes were kind of low and could learn how to speak. And then you'll notice that I got like, I guess, an opportunity to give a TED talk. And then that led to me giving another TED talk. I became a speaking coach. So I was teaching other people how to speak, how to talk. I was talking about really important issues like an Exxon mobile or an Aspen Ideas Health, Liftoff Pittsburgh, and it really kind of lost into doing other talks. So you also notice the kinds of things that I'm giving that I'm talking about also change, but it just happened overnight. And so I would think to yourself, if you feel like today, I don't know if I'm a science communicator. I don't know if I'd be good at it, like give yourself some credit. Like you what have you already done? How can that translate and also start today? You can do that. Now, some people feel like they don't want to fail that. Well, I didn't start trying to communicate science when I was an undergraduate. I am now the director of such and such, or I have a PhD now. And I'm so afraid that my words will reflect poorly on something. And I can really see that resonating with people who might be working at a government agency or maybe even at my stages. And like, I'm a professor, things will matter a little bit more now. And the reality is that there still are safe spaces where you can try to communicate. And I think podcasting is one. I will say now that I have faculty who start YouTube channels because they're like, well, I'm really great at machine learning. Why don't I teach people how to use machine learning and their practices? Or how about I take my paper and I talk about my paper on YouTube Live? Actually, John Kitchen does this really well. It's just pretty fun. So there's lots of opportunities for you to actually engage with your research. But you're just finding or taking advantage of new platforms to share that information. But the first part is to not be afraid to fail. Yeah. So I think this is a good time to we received a question from Carol that like I think adds to this, you know, not only is kind of be intimidating to start a podcast, but the topic like we just discussed can sometimes be just not can be intimidating to non-scientists. So how do you make a podcast something that's less intimidating or confusing without like watering it down or dumbing it down for an audience? So I'm not sure if you if you, Carol, if you are a scientist, but I would also kind of posit that if you have to write a grant, how many times do we do this kind of mental work where we say, how do I explain my work to someone who's smart, but not in my field? And how many times do we get frustrated when we're like, no, you really know this one detail like you need to know this. And now you're telling me that I have to kind of break it down. How do I break down something when everything I said was extremely important? But I need to somehow make this where anyone from any field, when they go when my grant goes up for a review, they're going to understand it. Right. So what I'm arguing is that the idea of translating from one scientist or one equally ranked level of education to another isn't as different as it is as translating to some other kind of unknown entity when you really think about it. It's still the same process where you are workshopping that you workshop how what's information is important, what information is not important. You don't know that off the top. I'll give an example when I when I did the Ted talk as there are things that I thought, oh, I I dumbed it down. And then I would talk with them and they're like, no, we still know what those words mean. And I had to come up with new words to describe things that I thought were just so basic and so simplistic. But it turns out people still understood what I was talking about. And then I had these different words. And so I think that the podcast gives you a platform where you can actually explain things. So I've seen people use kind of thinking about the codes, which podcasts, or they would actually have an explanatory common moment where they say, OK, here's this term and here's what it means. And then they say, OK, now we're going to go back to the actual topic and discuss that. So I think there are kind of like vocal strategies, like pauses that you can use to make that happen. And you'll learn some of that by practice. And the interesting thing about the how science is intimidating, one thing that podcasting can help you do is build trust with an audience or have people trust you. And I what and I think that some of this is also about would it be less intimidating if they had a rapport or the the benefit of having a podcast is that you might be able to make things feel less intimidating. Yeah, as again, someone who is not coming from a science background, I definitely understand that feeling of like, how do I break into this? But there's great communicators like yourself who've really made it easy to be able to understand and grasp on and learn about a variety of topics. So just a quick reminder, too, that if folks have questions to drop them in the Q&A, because we're going to be able to discuss those throughout, too, with Liz and she'll be able to share even more expertise if you guys have specific questions. But I think in this vein, Liz, I kind of want to talk about, like, obviously, can I mention one more thing? Absolutely. So if you you don't have to listen to the I'm not trying to advertise the podcast, but something that might be interesting for this idea about speaking to non audiences, it's important to mention that Zyne, was an English PhD student who the last science class she had taken had been in high school. And in the first season, in particular, we actually spent time explaining to each other what our fields were and why it was interesting and things we didn't realize that we knew. Like, there's this one episode where I actually took her to my lab and she was just like, everything's expensive. And she was just like, everything's expensive. Why can't I touch anything? Or like, she opened the mouse. She I can see a mouse brain right now. I'm freaking out, right? And I think there is just so much value to be gained from that. But I think that the intimidation helped or was reduced by having the access. And I kind of think we should give people a bit more credit for being able to process information if we give it to them. Because similarly, I understood more things about English than I thought. Like, I thought, well, in English, you can say whatever you want. Right. Like, oh, you just write stuff like, how do you know? And it's like, oh, you actually can't just write stuff actually. And you have to read tons of books and like can contextualize it. And it's actually not that easy or there's jerks in every field. So I think it's kind of interesting and reflective to think about what it meant to try to communicate science to this person. And every time we would have a guest on the podcast, there'd either be this moment where there's a scientist on and I'm going, uh-huh. And then Zionist is freaking out because she can't think of any questions. Or I am literally looking at them like, I don't know what your words mean and why are you speaking in too many? This is too complex of a sentence. And so I would maybe say it's OK to be complex, but it's better to have an environment where people can ask those questions. Like, so I think that's where podcasting can become engaging, where you might say, if you have questions, let us know and we'll answer that question. Yeah, definitely. Um, so I know, like when we were discussing before, like there's obviously a lot of things you need for a podcast. And oh, yeah, it's a kind of the the technical and equipment, you know, suggestions that you have. But I was also really interested in talking about kind of those psychological needs. And, you know, we talked a little bit about developing your voice. But how else do you kind of besides voice, but develop a podcast kind of brand and an audience and how do you market that and grow from, you know, kind of that initial idea? I think it can be very challenging to not only feel like you have something important to say, but to feel like you want to record yourself. And I think that was definitely as I go back, it was definitely like, well, no, I think we have great conversations. That doesn't mean that I think other people want to hear it, right? And I definitely had this moment where I had the podcast, we had our first episode, which ironically in that first episode, I said I was it was about the bias of women stem like we get hired two to one. And I was like, and then I also said, I'm going to industry. I'm never going to academia and like, look at me now. But I remember feeling terrified. But then I invited several of my friends to my apartment and we were in my living room and we were listening to the podcast. And I had them, I had to get over hearing my own voice. And I had to get over how like pop stars, it felt like crazy pop stars. It felt to kind of go like, am I listening to other people listen to me? Like how how egotistical can I be? But at the same time, like I was nervous and it was pretty good list. That was that was pretty good. It was interesting. And that was important. And it was something that I eventually kind of got over. And so I think that, yes, it is hard to feel like you have something worth saying. But you kind of have to say it anyway. And you have to do it. The benefit of the podcast was that I got to grow. And it was through the talking that I began to find what the real purpose could be and how important it was for me to talk with other people about science and how much they gained from having that voice that made me more encouraged to do the podcast. So I also think that the psychological barrier of getting started is just is dangerous to not starting. Then not. And again, this idea that if I talk about science, I'm going to ruin my career. If I if I if I do something that's too fun, I'm going to ruin my career. If I or the corollary, why would I spend time on something that doesn't count for any of my career hierarchies? Right. So if I'm a professor and I need to get tenure, this isn't what do I check this under publication or service, right? Or is this something I have to hide from my boss because I'm doing this on the side kind of thing or do how would I feel if my colleagues found this? And so I think that some of those things we can talk about those specifically actually and how I dealt with them. I think we have something at the end, maybe, but I think those are real. But also the way you get around that is don't share it the first time you. Like the Internet is so big, they would have to work really hard to find this, right? That's it. It's like, can you find someone's MySpace page right now? You absolutely cannot. So I think you'll be fine. You really will. Yeah, we have a question here from Denise. When you're looking at an episode and deciding kind of what that looks like, do you script it? Is it more like at this point? Are you guys just in conversation and letting that flow? Has that evolved as you've done this a little bit longer? OK, so the way that we do the podcast is still very much are you lower on the lower end part? That is I'm going to talk. I'm going to show you some of the stats that we have. And there's two minds that I have. One is that if I really wanted to populate the the numbers to go up. I could put more energy into making them go up by increasing, like by taking advantage of all I could I could Google metric my way into fitting the cookie cutter mold and going up. But as professors, we don't really do that right now because of the time constraints. And there's some ideas to work around that. So right now, Zion, I do kind of all of the the editing and the the the packaging. But one thing is to say, I'm going to record for 60 minutes or some time. And then I'm going to release that. We do we we do a version where we actually, one, we do think about what we're going to talk about. You can scripting is good. Scripting helps you have segues. It helps you identify your thoughts. It helps you keep you from rambling too far off topic. And we do do that. And that helps. And then we also edit afterwards, because actually, there are a lot of times where we have conversations and the reality is like, oh, wait, no, cut. We say cut so that we know when to cut and say, OK, here's something I want to tell you specifically about something juicy. I know this usually happens when there's a guest and like, oh, we can't we can't we can't this can't go out. But I'll tell you guys, right. So you have those moments where you're like, OK, there's something I want to talk to you about, but I can't tell everyone else. And then we cut and then we edit those things. Or like, actually, I was a little bit too honest in that moment. And that's data I'm not supposed to say or that stuff. I'm not supposed to I don't want people to be privy to. Right. So we have moments like that. But we tend to do a hybrid version. Now, when you start thinking about the kind of. The other podcast, what I also want you guys to keep in mind before you because sometimes you can feel like I want to be like that. Those podcasts have teams of people that have dedicated a sound board. So ideally, Zion I will be recording. And then there's someone here who only listens to our sound. And then we have another person who listens to our content. And then there's someone who's like, are your mics fine? Oh, your mic went out. Or you know what, you're doing a tapping thing and it's really annoying because they're I'm telling you, it happens. You know, you pay attention to these kind of things. You would have someone who just is an editor who comes in and just like separates the clips who might take out some of your ums and your pauses. And so those kind of things take money and they take a lot of concerted effort. And I would recommend not starting out that way or recommend building your ideas in a space and then trying to go in that route. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. It sounds like, you know, it definitely takes a village, whether that's a smaller village on a smaller scale or what could potentially be a very, very large village doing this on like a month, you know, a huge platform. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and besides kind of some of this like voice and how we get started and, you know, commerce, like scripting and whatnot, like, what would you say are some of those kind of bare necessities from the technical standpoint that like require you to kind of start this off? OK, yeah. And I'll answer that, but I thought about it was a voice piece and I apologize. I meant to say this, but I wanted to add like in regards to voice that there's space for everyone in podcasting, which is to say that you might imagine like, oh, but I'm not a cheerful person or I'm not that funny, right? So how why would someone listen to me for that period of time? And the reality is that I think you have to work with what you have and that the benefit is that if you are this way, there will be some segment of the population that also is really into that kind of maybe you're a dry or sarcastic person. Maybe you're kind of someone who's like, no, that's too much fluff. Just give it to me straight. You can do these kinds of things or you can also do something that Zion and I do where we kind of interview people together. We also do them separately, but because now it tells me now that we're in two different time zones. She lives in London now. Yeah, but finding your when I say finding your voice, I don't mean trying to become someone else's like, don't think, oh, I have to become like Ira Glass or I have to I have to get my my podcasting voice and I don't know, I was trying to make it deeper. I'm never going to have a deep voice and I have accepted that. And I never like how my voice sounds. I've also accepted that because for whatever reason, some people are also like, Liz, I love your voice. It's so soothing. It's so calm. And I love your pauses. And I'm like, OK, that's weird. Calm down. You don't know my address, right? But. But someone will like that. And someone it will you will find something that works. So finding your voice is finding like a cadence and a style that works for you, whether it's to have a co-host who plays off of you, whether you want more sound effects, maybe you want to read from a script. Maybe you're OK with knowing when your transitions are going to happen. And so the other question that you had. Was about that more than mechanical stuff, right? Yeah, well, I want to throw in one more question before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've we've got something that I'm sorry. So this is from Kendra, who recently graduated from Carnegie Mellon. So and kind of on this like idea of, you know, not just cadence and voice, but science and can be formal. What are your thoughts kind of on, you know, being more casual verbiage, kind of being lax and using slang or, you know, do you think that that ads takes away, makes a difference when we're talking about something like science? Oh, OK, I think the science can be fun. I think that I should be allowed to sound like I enjoy what I'm doing. I try to incorporate. I think science presentations should be fun to listen to and not just endure. I think people like my presentations more when I actually tell my research as a narrative, I think when people think back to the science that they actually understood and enjoyed, it was because it was a narration and not like a, well, I actually have a hundred papers. So let me just give you a few shots of them kind of thing. And I really enjoy the storytelling that goes into this. Now, I also will admit to you that, yes, we are a very formal stuffy bunch of people and we have a hierarchy and we have a way of doing things. And when I even what I try to do, I don't know, I guess this is my activism. But it's just to really say, like, are you really going to be upset because I said, y'all are, I don't know, I put. Um, you don't take any of my classes, but I really, I describe your immune system as a bunch of friends trying to decide which how to, which, like, which dinner party or restaurant to go to. Like mounting an immune response is like trying to get your whole family to agree on one place to go to pre pandemic. Now, that's a that is a that is not formal, but it makes everyone understand what happens. And I say that whether I'm at Harvard or I say that whether I'm talking to high school students because people get it and it makes sense. And then I go into my science. Um, and at the end of the day, what I really think is, is are people going to deny me tenure because I told them about a relatable way to talk about the immune system? No, they're not going to do that. Well, guess what? I'm going to keep saying my analogies because they're helpful because they bring students in my class because it helps people understand my talks. And by the way, getting talk invites is also helpful to my career because then I get more faculty to talk to me. Um, now, what I also add into that is to say that is always up to you to choose which tone and how you communicate information. Um, and that that is actually a part of communication like science communication is that you have different audiences and based on the audience, you choose the level that you speak and you choose the tone, which is to say, I'll give an example. When I'm talking to industry, I do not do my analogies. Now, why? Because they have 10 minutes of attention and they are like, do you have what I need or do you not have what I need? Right. There's a difference. Um, when I'm talking, if I talk to Congress, I don't know. Maybe I will. Maybe not. It really depends. You have to read the room. Right. Um, you have the power to do that. And so sometimes informal is not appropriate and you have to actually be able to decide when it is and when it is not or how much to use. But I would argue that the paradigm shift I'm going for is that you actually have a choice and not that there's one way that has to be done and also that I think people should enjoy talks and not endure them. I would love to have that emblazoned on many a bumper sticker and a T-shirt. So let's see what we can do about that merch. Merch is always good. Right. Um, OK, so let's talk technical. I know people have questions on it. So let's say kind of starting bare minimum. What do people need to know about the technical side of podcasting? So I listed some resources that you guys could use that were some baseline things. And I'm going to start from like free to not free. So, um, on the right, you've got a plethora of apps. One is that you need a way to record. So something digital. Now the field has really advanced now that people are podcasting more. They're actually online audio services that will do that for you. So I wrote down Zencaster. This is really helpful. Excuse me. If you are recording with yourself or if you're interviewing someone else, you send them a link and this is actually really useful because a lot of people aren't going to be audio savvy. And now they don't have to be because just just open the link and just press record. And then all the audio comes back to you. I can tell you that when we first started, that is not how it worked. It was very challenging. We had to get people to one, two, three clap on the audio so you can see a digital signature. So there's some other platforms like Zencaster, but Zencaster is the one that I use. If you are recording on your own computer, there are two free apps or two free programs. Audacity works for PC. It also works for Mac and then, of course, GarageBand. And that allows you to record, but then also edit. And that's going to be pretty important for you, too, because you may find, oh, there's that one thing where I move the microphone and it makes a really awkward noise or you might want to have like extra music that you have in the beginning of the end. So those are good editing softwares and those are the freelance. Also, Zencaster, I think you can get a certain amount of hours for free. And then afterwards, they get like these plans and have production costs and other things in them. Now, once you have your audio and you've recorded and let's say you have something you like, how do you show it with the world? So now you need to have a platform that's online that will like a base to give your information out. So we leave our podcast on SoundCloud. I think there's other ways you can do that. And I'm not sure maybe you can upload directly to Spotify. I'm not sure. But what we do is that we upload to SoundCloud. So the SoundCloud has all of our podcast from the very beginning. And then this is super easy because the thing is, nobody is controlling. You can upload anything you want on the Internet. Well, that sounds bad within reason. Within reason. You can upload podcasts on the internet, all the podcasts you want. And so we as an RSS feed. And so we just like ask Apple, well, can you accept our podcast? And like, yeah, they made a page. And then we do that for podcasts. And then sorry, Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher. You just want to make sure that your podcast is available to all the other apps. Right. Because everybody is using a different platform. You know, everybody's like, oh, I only I listen to everything on Apple. I listen to everything on Spotify. So being able to kind of diversify your platforms in what sounds like a super easy way to do that really makes a huge difference with sharing your information. Absolutely. Not to mention, you know, there's actually a really big Apple, Apple, Android divide. There are actually some studies. I think I heard it on the podcast. Some studies about how people even start to think differently because the phones, the way their software works, trains you a little bit differently. And so we think Republican Democrats, a big divide, but it's honestly like you have Apple products, you have Android products. But anyway, some people on Android actually don't use the same products. And so you could actually be excluding a whole population of people because you only put it on a product that Apple people really use as an example. Now, I would suggest that if you're getting started and maybe you're too afraid of your like, I just want to test this out. Just send make it keep it private and send it to a few people that you really like. And then look at that. And then if you really like, OK, this is that legs. Now I'm ready to really launch. I want to launch myself into the internet. Then you can, you know, go all out and make the Facebook page, a Twitter page and then highlight that. And then you want to get people to like review and like your podcast as it goes up in like a number of algorithms and stuff. So those are some of the technological digital electronic things you would need. I guess I should have mentioned the computer to do this. Yeah. The other thing is you want to have as best audio quality as you possibly can. This and, you know, many people have recorded using like the you know, podge or other things. But the best like a Yeti microphone or any other type of external microphone is going to give you way better quality. So, you know, that, I don't know, you know, like that smooth, silky podcast voice or whatever, you know, when you get really in, you know, into that radio voice, you're going to get that. And that's what you're going to want. And even if you are just straight recording and you're not editing a lot, having good audio will make it sound like you have better production. And it will be very important. And so there's some other types of things you can have, but I find the Yeti's pretty useful. Now, you might wonder, what's that thing on the right? Do I need to what do I need to buy? I'm very confused. I need to go to like a T.J. Max or like a full podcast wardrobe, if you will. Yeah, what do I need to do? So you need a place that has good acoustics. So you need to be in a place that has one not a lot of disturbances. So you there are noises all around you that you don't think about. But on that podcast, you will. Now, the fanciest of us will go to a recording studio. That's what your fancy podcast people will do. And they have like the soundproof walls and it's like this is beautiful. Like there's nothing happening. Like pen drops, that's it, you know, but most of us won't have that unless you really have a room and you want to put all the padding on there. But it's simply hard to soundproof something without investment. Clothes are really good at that. And so if you're trying to hide from your family, your pets, you know, go to your closet, keep it in the closet. OK, but you can do that and record there is actually really good at absorbing and preventing the echo. And so even if it's not a closet, you want to be in a room that has very few bare walls because that helps reduce the echo and reverberation that happens because that'll make your voice have a different quality as well. Learning how your voice sounds under different environments will also be really interesting. And maybe your podcast's first episode can be about how sound travels. So you want that you maybe want to have space for no one's coming in or out. Are you next door? Are you right next to like the heat source? Because you'll be able to hear the hum. And also some types of lights also hum. And the better your microphone is, the more you'll hear it. So you just want to think about those things. And again, for you just starting out, the best way to look like you have very high quality without actually putting a lot of effort is to just have really good audio quality. OK, great. That's super helpful. You know, didn't know that my small apartment would be such a podcast jumping off place for me, but good to know. When I first started the podcast, my room was nominated to be where we recorded. And at first I thought, oh, this is so nice. And it's like, no, because it's so messy was there's not a bare spot here. Like this is perfect. And I was like, oh, well, it worked out in the end. It worked out. I didn't have to go anywhere. So I was great. Well, we're getting down to our last like nine minutes. And so I want to make sure that we have time to really talk about podcasting as activism. Oh, yeah. Your voice is activism, because that was such an interesting conversation that we had before. So I know that you had some great examples and thoughts on that. So I'd love to kind of dive into that for our closing topic. Right. So it's along the same lines of when we think about science and can we be a science communicator? And it's almost like you're hitting on this invisible but very real force field that we're only supposed to be pipetting or typing, whatever, if you're an experimental computational person. And we're supposed to act in a certain way. And it really is like a historical because science has been science does have political aspects. Literally, we're funded by the government. We were like the interest. How we practice science right now is is. Yeah, go read The Endless Frontier, right? By Ben and Rob Bush and go read about that whole error. And everything is important. And if nothing else, we get to decide what questions are important and then who gets to pursue those questions and how it all these things. And so it's really interesting. And I think a lot of people kind of feel at war with this of like, I'm a human, I'm a robot, I'm a human, I'm a robot. And. I along the same lines of in my communicator is OK to be a communicator and so be a scientist and I say embrace both of them. Like you do talk like just keep just talk and press play and press record and you'll be fine. But thinking about activism, like so what do you do outside of the lab, outside of the office building? And so I had like one of many moments, but I had this moment when I was a postdoc and I studied at UNC Chapel Hill and I was finishing my postdoc right in the middle of the Silent Sam controversy with the Confederate statue on campus that was so controversial and they were Confederate. I'm not even sure what the call these what the groups are anymore. There are just opposing forces and like like rallies every day. There were people bringing guns on campus and just waving the Confederate flag and I feel very uncomfortable about where I should walk on campus. And then the other interesting thing for me became I think I want to do something, but I need to go to lab. Like I have things to finish and I think that people who do science do have this challenge, especially like I had some undergraduate students and like people all on the pipeline were like, I want my work to matter. I care about these things deeply by my time points in my cells and my work is in a different place. And in that place where I work, no one's talking about these issues, right? So I often think of my presence being my activism in a way because well, if I'm the only black person here, then I need to do well because well, that's actually I don't want to confuse that. That's another topic. But one of the ways I got to really think about these things was that PhDs, you can find someone who studied everything. And as it just so happened, we knew Zion, I knew someone who did a PhD looking at Confederate statues and how they were popping up in the South decades after the Civil War and could talk about Silent Sam. And she also had gone to UNC as an undergraduate, but we met her when she was a grad student at Cornell. And so we invited her to talk about the history of Silent Sam, because like, well, tell me what is this? Why is it so controversial? Why are these things happening? I'm really getting to kind of do something about a problem that was staring me in the face that made me feel guilty or made me feel just I need to go to lab. And and I'm also scared of going to lab because I don't want to go to campus. But also what am I doing? Why am I not out there? And I want to kind of use this as a way for you guys to think about all the topics that you are probably really passionate about. And you're thinking about how can I use the skills that I've learned? How can I use my training and what I know? To help. And in a way, this was my form of activism. It's not the only one, but it was a way of saying I have a platform to actually have engaging discussions with experts, right, that know about these things, that elevate and uplift people that were really useful. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it really speaks to there is no excuse for you not to be able to do something that there's a place for everyone to find their voice and that activism and really support important causes. And you've been able to do that in such an amazing and varied way between not only your scientific work, but having this podcast and like looking through your network to see how else can I share this information and how else can I learn. And I think that's like a very important aspect of activism and the work that you do in the lab to, you know, you're really utilizing and leveraging everything that you have at your disposal. So we did similar things when it came to covid. I I'm a scientist. I don't I'm not a virologist, right? I'm just as I know just as much as the average person. And so what I do, I called up my virology friends and wrote like, hey, would you like to be interviewed? Like, can I just ask you some questions and let people hear me ask you questions? And then I felt like I knew more and I helped understand. And I also want to highlight that the podcast was really helpful for people. So I remember. I always hear about people who say, hey, I did an interview or I was interviewing for a job and they actually said that they listen to my podcast interview and they understand I work better now. Or people listen to it to kind of see what kind of person they were to help get their message across that the person who Dr. Taylor, who worked with me on the on the coronavirus like episode we did. Also, then got interviewed by PBS and then also got interviewed with, you know, talked with Congress and she's like, we're back black in microbiology. And so it was really interesting to kind of have the references come back. And so when we talk about the podcast kind of being P.H. Diva's, we started off as thinking that this was just this is just me and Zine and we were Diva's like the kind of like talking about ideas that are interesting. And what happened was that we found that a lot of people and also a lot of them were women who were kind of thinking, I don't know what I can can or cannot say. I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing. I'm afraid that I'm going to have vitro if I say the wrong thing. I don't have any media training. And now it's the podcast is doing that for them. And the podcast is actually helping them promote their book, promote their like new ideas, help them get through like a mental health issue or helping them think about other interesting challenges that people had. And it's really helpful. And I also want to point out that every single year I've been a faculty, there have been at least four or five students who reference the podcast for why they're interviewing for Carnegie Mellon in my department. That's extremely impressive. Yeah. And that's me counting them, right? I don't actually I don't like control search for all of them. But it's kind of like these are love letters or there are so many people who I'm walking by and they're doing the double take and like, Oh, my God. Oh, my God, I meet you. I can't believe I'm meeting you like, OK, I didn't know we met each other. Or if you show the stats, we were showing some of the stats of the the podcast. And I had no idea that people across the world were listening to our podcast. And I had no idea how much certain things matter to people. But not only did it have like an emotional impact for me, but also it was one of my first international scientific invitations because this person listens to the podcast and they're like, well, now you're going to speak in Dublin, Ireland or you now you're going to do this thing. And I think you shouldn't underestimate the power of educating, inspiring and sharing knowledge with the generation of future scientists coming up. I think you shouldn't underestimate the lateral translation of how do I now share my research? I see how you're doing it. I like to do it in genomics. I like to do it in machine learning. How do I do that? And you shouldn't underestimate the power that it has for institutions you work with because now that I have stats when I I know I have to wrap up. The last thing I'll say is that we often think, why do we do things that don't meet the bottom line? What do I do if I co-workers find out about it? When I applied for my faculty positions, I I show them the stats and I show them that listen like if two thousand, three thousand people are listening to this per episode. This is an impactful tool for science communication that helps me do outreach that helps me then incorporate this into my NSF grant. I can write this into my grants to help earn money. I can actually use this to expand my information about research. I can interview other women who are on campus and what department doesn't or university doesn't want to hear someone say, you're going to do what for my woman on campus? You're going to help elevate a thing that I probably recruit more of, right? See how I did that? See how both of those happened? Both drops of information. But being able to turn something that sounds like it's just a hobby into this is a viable source of information. This is important. And this is and you're welcome. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think I don't we couldn't really end on a better point than like, here's your welcome, like opening the doors, creating opportunity, creating a platform to share science and research, elevating voices. I mean, truly like you have really shown how impactful this medium can be and how impactful your voice is. So I can't say thank you enough for sharing your time with us this evening. You've been beyond amazing. I've learned so much. I know everyone else has as well. And really, thank you so, so much for sharing for having me. All of your insights and expertise. Awesome. Thank you so much. I know we didn't get to everyone's questions. Well, we'll be able to try to get some answered on social media if we can get them in. So don't worry. Great. Thank you so much, everyone. Yeah, I just wanted to thank both of you for a fantastic hour and reminding one watching that this was recorded and will be posted on YouTube. So if that's anything, you can go back and rewatch it at your leisure and that you can get more information about our series at genome.gov.com. And the next event will be in March with Joe Palca. So thank you again, Liz, Melissa, for a fantastic conversation. I learned so much about podcasting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.