JEDI in STEM – Bethann Garramon Merkle, MFA

October 4, 2022October 12, 2022

Meteor: The honest podcast about scicomm with impact

Decorative image only: Screenshot of website linked to in blog post. Follow links to access full content.

Last year, I launched Meteor, a podcast, with friend, collaborator, and fellow dreamer-schemer Virginia Schutte. We just wrapped Season 2 a few weeks ago, and I am so pleased to have so much to share with you!

We started Meteor because we crave advanced-user conversations with other mid-career scicomm professionals (like us!). We intended to use Meteor to learn and grow together, and check each other when we need it. Our plan was to dig into things as wide-ranging as branding, projects that matter, privilege, and inclusive science communication, with actionable, tangible steps to level up.

I have been working in scicomm for over 20 years, and it’s like you are inside my head. ~Meteor listener

In the first ten episodes, we covered all sorts of topics. Here are a few of my favorites:

What we think scicomm needs
Branding is not a dirty word
The privilege of volunteering
Balance, schmalance (about work-life balance)

July 12, 2022July 12, 2022

Article: Sharing Science Through Shared Values, Goals, and Stories: An Evidence-Based Approach to Making Science Matter

Screenshot of the first page of the manuscript being discussed in this blog post. Follow links in the blog post for an accessible version of all the text. — Screenshot of first page of the paper

Last fall, I had the great pleasure to accept an invitation to write a paper for a special issue in the journal Human-Wildlife Interactions. The issue focuses on ravens, and the editors thought the topic needed a scicomm perspective. I like to share the love/fun/platform whenever possible, so I reached out to three scicomm colleagues who I know think long and hard about effective, inclusive scicomm in applied/policy/human-wildlife settings.

Now, nearly a year later, I’m delighted to share that our paper has been published and is available for free/open access. It is especially satisfying to have this paper out in the world just in time to share it at the upcoming Ecological Society of America annual meeting, a training for a state agency’s wildlife biologists I’m leading in August, and as part of the portfolio of work two of the co-authors can submit for their PhDs!

Read on for a synopsis of the paper.

April 5, 2022April 5, 2022

Article: Community voices – the importance of diverse networks in academic mentoring

Screenshot of our proposed framework for effective mentoring situated within a well-funded and institutionally supported system to build mentor and mentee capacity. Follow link to article for full text and optimized alt text.

Nearly two years ago, I started collaborating with an international group of researchers interested in enhancing mentoring for scientists within academic settings. Last week, we published a paper that details one of the essential approaches that we’ve identified through a scan of 27 career development, leadership, and mentoring programs worldwide. That is: multi-mentor networks rather than relying exclusively on an individual mentor (often an adviser or superviser). We also recommend this structure be invested in and developed across training stages, to support a more diverse pool of scientists as they progress through their careers.