Best Practices: Covering Science in Cyberspace

Agenda | Speakers | Fellows | Resources | Blog

Speakers

Adam Frank has been a professor at the University of Rochester since 1996 where his research focused on the general area of theoretical astrophysics, and in particular the hydrodynamic and magneto-hydrodynamic evolution of matter ejected from stars. Current research topics include: jets from Young Stellar Objects, bipolar outflows from evolved stars such as Planetary Nebulae and Massive stars. Investigations are carried out though the use of large-scale numerical simulations. Frank also is actively involved in science outreach as a popular science writer. He is a regular contributor to Discover and Astronomy magazines and has written for Scientific American, Sky & Telescope and Tricycle. Frank recently completed a book entitled The Constant Fire: Science, Myth and the Scared due out next year from the University of California Press. Among various awards and honors, Frank has received a Hubble Fellowship, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the science-writing prize from the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society. He received his Ph.D. in physics (1992) from the University of Washington and held postdoctoral and visiting scientist positions at Leiden University and the University of Minnesota.

Email:
Phone: (585) 820-1248

Alfred Hermida is a multimedia journalism pioneer who now teaches at the University of British Columbia. He was a founding member of the award-winning BBCNews.com Web site in 1997 and was the daily news editor for four years, during which time the site was widely recognized as one of the best online news services in the world. Later, as technology editor for the Web site, he wrote extensively about trends in new media and helped launch a BBC technology news podcast. In the summer of 2006, he joined the graduate School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia to set up a new course in multi-platform journalism, which focuses on innovative story-telling methods, looking at new styles of narrative that take advantage of the simultaneous use of text, hypertext, photos, audio, video and interactive elements. He has also launched a course in science journalism, which brings together journalism and science graduate students. The course takes a critical look at the reporting of science and the challenges in covering such a complex and rapidly evolving area. Hermida worked as a journalist for the BBC for a total of 16 years. Early on in his career, he spent four years as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East for BBC TV and radio, covering military coups, presidential assassinations and the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Hermida keeps a blog on trends in digital journalism at www.reportr.net.

Email:
Phone: 604) 827 3540

John B. Horrigan is associate research director for the Pew Internet & American Life Project where he studies the online behavior of broadband Internet users and consumers of other leading edge information technology. He also leads Pew’s research on the Internet's impact on people’s social networks and news-gathering habits. He has spoken at numerous conferences and seminars, including appearances at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Economic Forum, the Associated Press Broadcast Advisory Board, and the Federal Communications Commission. Prior to joining the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Horrigan was a staff officer for the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy at the National Research Council. He received his Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin and his B.A. in government and economics from the University of Virginia.

Email:
Phone: (202) 419-4512

Donald Kennedy currently serves as editor-in-chief of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. After serving as Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 1977-1979, Kennedy became president of Stanford University in 1980 until 1992. He has been on the faculty of Stanford University since 1960, including serving as chair of the Department of Biology and as director of the Program in Human Biology. His present research interests include policies for resolving trans-boundary environmental problems such as global climate change, and the development of regulatory policies. A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1972, he has served on the National Commission for Public Service and the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government, and as a founding director of the Health Effects Institute. He is a director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, co-chair of the National Academies’ Project on Science, Technology and Law, and a trustee of the David and Lucille Packard Foundation. He received A.B. and Ph.D. degrees in biology from Harvard.

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Rob Semper is a physicist and science educator, and the executive associate director of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. He is responsible for leading the institution’s work in developing programs of teaching and learning using exhibits, media and Internet resources. He is head of the Exploratorium’s Center for Learning and Teaching which contains the institution’s programs in teacher professional development, youth programming, publishing, media and Internet development. Semper is the principle investigator on numerous science education, media and research projects including leading the National Science Foundation-sponsored Center for Informal Learning and Schools, a research collaboration between the Exploratorium; the University of California, Santa Cruz; and King’s College, London which studies the relationship between museums and formal education, and serving as co-PI on the NSF-funded Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network, a national network of science centers designed to foster engagement of the public with the nanotechnology field. Over the past 15 years Semper has guided the development of the award-winning Exploratorium Web site that has explored the role of museums in the online world including the development of online field trips to locations of scientific research. Since joining the Exploratorium in 1977, he has lead numerous exhibit development, teacher enhancement and media development projects focused on science education for the public, teachers and students. Semper received his Ph.D. in solid state physics from Johns Hopkins University.

Email:
Phone: (415) 561-0318

Experts

Anne Balsamo has been a technologist and new media designer for more than a decade. She currently serves as the director of Academic Programs at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy. She is also a full professor of Interactive Media and Gender Studies. In 2002, she co-founded Onomy Labs, Inc., a Silicon Valley technology design and fabrication company that builds cultural technologies. Previously she was a member of RED (Research on Experimental Documents), a collaborative research group at Xerox PARC who created experimental reading devices and new media genres. She served as project manager and new media designer for the development of RED's interactive museum exhibit, XFR: Experiments in the Future of Reading. Prior to joining the research staff at PARC, Balsamo was an associate professor in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology where she directed the graduate program in "Information Design and Technology.” Her first book, Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women (Duke University Press, 1996) investigated the social and cultural implications of emergent bio-technologies. Her new book project, Designing Culture: A Work of the Technological Imagination, examines the relationship between cultural theory and technological innovation.

Email:
Phone: (213) 743-4769