Let's Talk SciComm

Three years later and we couldn’t be more excited to be sharing Episode 100 of Let’s Talk SciComm with you. We are so proud to still be creating this podcast and couldn’t be more grateful to YOU, our fabulous listeners, for continuing to support us. 

To celebrate reaching episode 100 and the end of Season 13, Jen and Michael decided to turn the spotlight inwards and ask each other some of our favourite quick-fire questions, with a few new questions thrown in for good measure. We hope the result is a fun conversation in which you can get to know us a bit better and learn something about effective science communication along the way. 

We’ll be back with more episodes of ‘Let’s Talk SciComm’ and ‘Listen To This If…’ in February 2025 and in the meantime, we wish you all the best for a lovely Festive Season and hopefully holidays filled with fun and rest. 

We’d love to connect with you here:

It’s hard to believe this is the 99th episode of Let’s Talk SciComm! 

As you can imagine, we are very excited to still be producing our podcast three years and 99 episodes later. To celebrate, we invited the rest of our fabulous teaching team - Dr Catriona Nguyen-Robertson, Dr Linden Ashcroft and Dr Graham Phillips back to the podcast. The five of us spend half an hour reflecting on the highs and lows of our science communication experiences and what we’ve learned along the way about how to be more effective communicators. We hope you’ll find our reflections helpful!

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This week we had a fascinating conversation with speech pathologist and science communicator Dr Georgie Johnson. Georgie is a clinical researcher with an interest in childhood stuttering treatment and addressing the psychological impact of stuttering for children. Georgie completed her PhD in 2024 investigating management of stuttering during the school years. Part of this program of research was a treatment trial of an intervention to support 6-12 year old children who stutter from across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. From this trial, Georgie and colleagues have published a range of freely accessible practical recommendations and clinical resources for community clinicians to use to optimise treatment outcomes for their school age clients. Georgie is also one of the Directors of the Stuttering Association for the Young Australia (SAY AU) and continues to work in the field to explore psychosocial support for young people who stutter. 

You can follow Georgie and find out more about her work here:

This week we had the most wonderful conversation with wildlife scientist, woman in STEMM/STEAM, science communicator, author and vessel operator, Dr Vanessa Pirotta. You’re going to love hearing Vanessa’s infectious enthusiasm for all things science and science communication. 

Vanessa’s research uses innovative technologies for wildlife conservation. Vanessa works collaboratively across both marine and terrestrial environments merging cutting edge technology to access animals in unique ways. Most notable works include drones to collect whale snot and the use of computer algorithms and AI for the detection of illegal wildlife trafficking.

Vanessa is a passionate and experienced science communicator who plays an important role in society by making science accessible across generations. Vanessa’s spoken on the TEDx platform and has been recognized by the Australian Financial Review as one of the top 100 Women of Influence and recently, a 2024 finalist in the Australian’s Museums Eureka awards for promoting understanding of science and winner of the 2024 Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards Emerging leader in Science.

Vanessa is working collaboratively with indigenous knowledge holders such as the Gamay Rangers, to learn more about the marine mammals in our blue backyard but also identifying appropriate ways scientists can respectfully incorporate First Nations perspectives into marine research. Vanessa is also the lead scientist of the citizen science program Wild Sydney Harbour, connecting community with its blue backyard.

Vanessa is also a proud children’s book author, with her book The Voyage of Whale and Calf, serving as an annual reminder of humpback whale biology and ecology in Australian waters. In 2024, Vanessa also released two additional books; The Humpback Highway: Diving into the mysterious world of whales and a second children’s book, Oceans At Night.

Vanessa is a highly experienced presenter and was the invited MC for the prestigious Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science at Parliament House, Canberra in 2023/24.

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

This week we are lucky enough to chat with Linh Do, an incredible sustainability leader, educator, and climate justice advocate based in Melbourne, Australia. As Director of the Wattle Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, she cultivates the next generation of sustainability leaders through an innovative year-long program. With over a decade of experience across advocacy, media, and social enterprise sectors, Linh has worked globally to drive climate action and community engagement.

Linh holds multiple leadership positions in the community, including chair of Climate Action Network Australia and a board member at the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation, and a research committee member at the Centre for Policy Development. She is a co-founder of the technology start-up OurSay and has previously led community organising at the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Linh's work bridges diverse disciplines and sectors to create holistic approaches to complex environmental challenges. Prior to her current role, she served as the Australia and Pacific lead for The Climate Reality Project, Al Gore's climate leadership program; and as publisher and editor-in-chief of The Verb during the Paris climate negotiations. She has collaborated with diverse organisations, from high school students to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Reuters Foundation.

 Externally, she has been recognised with for her sustainability leadership from Green Gown Awards Australasia Sustainability Leadership, as a Woman of Influence from the Australian Financial Review (AFR) and as the Australian Geographic Young Conservationist of the Year.

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