“If the lab coat doesn’t fit?

The workshop was followed by a panel discussion titled “If the lab coat doesn’t fit? Communicating science outside your comfort zone”. The discussion took the form of a two-way interaction between the panellists and the students.

Students were advised to be clear about their research goals, to try stepping into the world of the target community and go for dialogue rather than one-way communication when communicating their science. Visual maps and graphic representations are among the widely used tools that help to make the scientific findings more understandable. Therefore, delegates were also introduced to R-studio, one of the most popularly used open source statistical packages, and GIS, which were both presented by SAEON’s Dr Jasper Slingsby and Hayden Wilson.