Making our science conversations accessible, personal, inclusive and relevant.
Communicating science through the lens of our identities and what makes us human.
If science is guiding the shape of our future, then science needs to embrace the greatest possible diversity of creative people.
Science Communication to Build Sustainable Community and Stakeholder Partnerships
Our community dialogue frameworks establish sustainable partnerships and networks that build trustworthiness with community members. These have focused primarily on what community members think and feel about COVID vaccination but will be expanded to other topics including mental health and health disparities.
Science Communication in the Face of Controversy
As the pandemic has revealed, science- and health-related controversies typically involve conflicts over beliefs, values, and interests that guide the public science conversation rather than simply a need for knowledge from science. We study stakeholder perceptions about the trustworthiness and credibility of science communicators on diverse audiences and community stakeholders.
Science Communication for Citizens
Civic Science communication programs and trainings support citizen readiness to use science-related information as a resource for relationship-building and decision-making. We implement communication strategies that help individuals and communities feeling disconnected, mistrustful and disengaged from science to feel more connected, trusting, and engaged.
Science Communication for Scientists
Civic Science trains undergraduate, graduate, post-docs and junior medical faculty with skills needed to communicate why their research matters. They learn to engage their listeners by deepening public understanding and enthusiasm about science. Such training helps participants recognize the two-way communication tools needed to engage diverse audiences by sharing their professional activities through a more holistic lens.
Science Communication for Improved Health Outcomes
Our Civic Science Initiative at Tufts has developed communication strategies in collaboration with Tufts Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI) to address health-related issues important to patients, community members, clinicians, caregivers, and researchers. We use interactive communication approaches that offer these stakeholders knowledge and skills to make well-informed, health-related choices that address personal and community concerns.
“Inclusive” Science Communication
While science is designed to enhance well-being it has been negatively impacted by structural biases historically embedded within our society. “Inclusive” science communication trains scientists to place science issues in this broader historical context of the politics of identity and the dynamics of power and privilege. Civic Science creates an “inclusive” communication environment to facilitate an exchange of information, and preferences among individuals that differ in their expertise, power and values so that all stakeholder voices are heard valued.
Science Communication Research
Civic Science studies how individuals historically underrepresented in science-based discourse will respond to attempts to communicate science amid science-related controversy. Our goal is to better understand how implementing approaches based on inclusivity and equity can reshape the science communication environment to address the needs of individuals who have been underrepresented in science discourse.
Rapping Science