URMA CONFERENCE 2021 • JULY 14-16

URMA Conference 2021

Join us virtually in Blue Hen Country for URMA 2021 at the University of Delaware! You’ll connect with colleagues from universities and institutions who communicate about research through online and print magazines, media relations, social media, videos, podcasts and more. Our conference features practitioners in realms such as journalism, design, photography, multimedia and other areas relevant to telling the stories of research. If you communicate about your institution’s research, URMA’s annual conference is for you.

Not a member? Find out how to join URMA.

2021 URMA Host Institution

URMA 2021 was hosted by the University of Delaware from July 14 through July 16. From the virtual sessions covering COVID-19 Pandemic: Transitions, Takeaways and Moving Forward to Cultivating Community this conference covered all disciplines.

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Registration

This was a 3 virtual conference hosted but the University of Delaware and registration was required to access the sessions and materials shared during this event.

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July 14th Agenda

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July 15th Agenda

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July 16th Agenda

July 14th Agenda

12 PM (EDT): Welcome followed by Emerging from the Pandemic: Transitions, Takeaways and Moving Forward

As the world gains the upper hand in the fight against COVID-19, communications leaders from several federal agencies will talk about some of the challenges their teams have faced and any silver linings, new initiatives they are planning, and how URMA members can best collaborate with federal partners, moving forward.

SESSION PANELISTS

Rick Borchelt

Rick Borchelt is director of communications and public affairs for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. In addition to DOE, his career in science, communications and public policy includes stints at five other federal science agencies — USDA, NIH, NASA, USIA and the Smithsonian; and tours of duty as a Congressional committee press secretary and as special assistant for public affairs in the Clinton White House. His experience also reflects work for the

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National Academy of Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Vanderbilt University, MIT/The Whitehead Institute and the University of Maryland. He was a member of the National Academy of Science’s roundtable on Public Interfaces in the Life Sciences, served on the National Academy of Engineering’s study of engineering communication, and most recently completed a stint on the NASEM study committee on the future of biological collections. He currently serves on the editorial board of the peer-reviewed journal Science Communication. Areas of particular interest include trust in science, communication challenges for basic science, citizen science, and developing community based public engagement in science.

Allison Eckhardt

Allison Eckhardt is deputy director of communications and public affairs for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. She leads the outreach and media team to identify and facilitate Office of Science research stories, engage interested audiences through multiple platforms, and work with media to tell the story of basic research at DOE. Allison provides strategic counsel to senior program and scientific staff and coordinates the communications efforts of the Office of Science National Laboratories.

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She has a B.S. and M.S. from the University of Florida in agricultural education and communication, with a specialization in communication.

Amanda Hallberg Greenwell

Amanda Hallberg Greenwell is head of the National Science Foundation’s Office of Legislative and Public Affairs. She leads a team that communicates about NSF’s mission to a diverse range of audiences including Congress, the news media, state and local governments, other federal agencies, and the research and education communities. Prior to joining NSF, she was director of the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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She previously served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and on the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and the Coast Guard, where she advised Congressional members on domestic and international fisheries, marine mammals, coral reefs, aquaculture, seafood safety and the U.S. Coast Guard. Originally from Nebraska, she earned her B.S. in marine biology from Hawaii Pacific University and has completed Harvard’s Senior Managers in Government Program.

Renate Myles

Renate Myles is the acting communication director for the NIH Office of Communications and Public Liaison (OCPL), managing NIH’s communication on NIH programs and activities to NIH staff, the public, the media and stakeholder communities. Located in the NIH Office of the Director, OCPL coordinates its activities with communication offices within NIH’s 27 institutes and centers and the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs.

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Myles has more than 30 years of communication experience, including senior communication management positions in the health care, global high-tech and nonprofit industries. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in communications from Auburn University and an MBA from George Washington University.

1:30 PM (EDT): So you want to set up a science communications training program for faculty …

Many of us work one-on-one with faculty to prepare them for media interviews and presentations. But what does it take to develop a full-fledged training program? Communications leaders at UC Davis and UC San Diego will share insights from their successful programs. This is an URMA hot topic, based on our member survey, so don’t miss it!

SESSION PANELISTS

Mario Aguilera

Mario Aguilera is director of communications for UC San Diego’s Division of Biological Sciences, a position he has held since 2017. His responsibilities include developing and coordinating communication strategies with leadership to help achieve divisional and campus goals and publicizing research and other features through news releases, articles, interviews, videos and social media.

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Aguilera also serves as co-leader of the campus’ Research Communications Program, which trains scientists to clearly and effectively communicate their research to public audiences. He joined UC San Diego in 1997 as a public information officer/science writer and worked at Scripps Institution of Oceanography until 2017. Prior to Scripps, Aguilera worked as a freelance journalist and reporter with the North County Times, San Diego Daily Transcript and The Log newspapers.

Kim Rubinstein

Kim Rubinstein is a UC San Diego professor emeritus who taught acting and directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance. She is also a nationally renowned theatre director who has directed and won awards at prestigious theatres such as The Old Globe, San Diego Repertory, Long Wharf Theatre, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble and Chicago Shakespeare. Before coming to UC San Diego, she was the associate artistic director for the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, and was the associate director of the national tour of Angels in America.

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She was a full-time lecturer at Northwestern University’s Theatre and Performance Studies department and has also taught acting/directing at University of Chicago, Brown/Trinity Consortium, Wesleyan University and The School at Steppenwolf. Ten years ago, she launched a research project on the neuroscience of the creative mind, which has spawned classes and workshops on Cultivating the Creative Mind and Communicating Your Research for the Graduate Division at UC San Diego and for postdocs and faculty of the Division of Biological Sciences and the Division of Physical Sciences through a generous grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. She also does private communicating research coaching with UC San Diego faculty and administration.

Sherry Seethaler

Sherry Seethaler, a great lover of science, teaches research communication and directs education initiatives at the University of California San Diego. She was the Science Questions Answered columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune for more than seven years and published two anthologies of her columns: Curious Folks Ask 1&2. Her other books are Lies, Damned Lies, and Science, which provides practical strategies to help people sort through science and health information,

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and Adventures of Sparky and Roo: The Cube, an illustrated children’s book inspired by life with her rescue dog. Her books have been translated into several languages. Her background is in the sciences, biochemistry and chemistry (B.Sc., University of Toronto) and neurobiology (M.S. and M.Phil., Yale University) and science education (Ph.D., UC Berkeley).

Dana Topousis

Dana Topousis is chief marketing and communications officer at UC Davis. She leads the Strategic Communications department, including undergraduate admissions communications, and oversees UC Davis Health Public Affairs & Marketing on the Sacramento campus. Previously, leading public affairs at the National Science Foundation, she and her team launched or expanded a variety of science communication and social media platforms, created the agency’s first free iPad app,

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and developed the agency’s first public communications and media policy. She also accompanied journalists to Antarctica and participated in the launch of a $200 million research vessel. Previously, she was the first communications director for NOAA’s National Marine Protected Areas Center. She earned her master’s degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University and her bachelor’s degree in business and communication from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota.

July 15th Agenda

12 PM (EDT): Cultivating Community – Progress and Possibility

The struggle for justice filled streets across the U.S. and around the globe during the past year, as the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare layers of inequities and injustices that have plagued racial minorities. How can we help cultivate a more just society? In this inspirational and educational session, we’ll learn about the “Black Voices in Research” storytelling project at the University of Florida; the latest research and practical advice on allyship from University of Delaware experts, and one URMA member’s quest to write about all people with dignity.

SESSION PANELISTS

Kathryn Jepsen

Kathryn Jepsen is URMA member and editor-in-chief of Symmetry, an online institutional publication about particle physics and astrophysics published by two U.S. national laboratories. She works remotely for SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and has previously worked in communications at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and at CERN.

Jennifer Joe

Jennifer Joe is the Whitney Family Endowed Professor of Accounting and the Cohen Family Diversity Officer in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics at the University of Delaware. She studies how key institutional factors impact the quality of corporate financial reporting including audit litigation, regulations, audit quality and data analytic tools, and the role of cognition in decisions using accounting information.

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Her recent research investigates diversity in U.S. corporations and business schools. She is a frequent keynote speaker at corporate and academic events on accounting and diversity issues. As chief diversity officer of UD’s Lerner College, she creates the agenda for equity and inclusion and collaborates with corporate partners and alumni. She is an American Accounting Association (AAA) Presidential Scholar and has won the McLaughlin Prize for Ethics in Accounting Research, among numerous other awards.

Tiffany Danielle Chisholm Pineda

Tiffany Danielle Chisholm Pineda was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is a poet, comedian, author, orator, radio personality, educator and writer. She is the mother of three amazing children — Gregory II, Courtney and Noah. She graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville, where she still resides with her family. She holds certifications in Minority Mentorship from the University of Florida; Cultural Competence from Albany State; and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity in the Workplace from University of South Florida.

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She has created a certification for Obtaining Consent for Research Participation with an emphasis on cultural competence and many other trainings related to diversity, equity and inclusivity. She is the chair and co-founder of the University of Florida’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s Diversity and Cultural Competence Council, known as DC3. She is a regulatory specialist at the University of Florida, where she has been blessed to work in various positions for over 24 years including having been an Institutional Board Member for almost a decade. She is a board member of Kids n Capes, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting children.

Wendy Smith

Wendy K. Smith is professor of management and Deutsch Family Fellow at the University of Delaware’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. She studies how we adopt both/and approaches to navigate competing demands in our life and work – tensions between today and tomorrow, global and local, social missions and financial pressures, work and life, competition and collaboration.

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Her research has been published in top journals, and she has been recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher for being among the top 1% of scholars with the most cited research. In 2016, she co-founded the Women’s Leadership Initiative at UD, which works to advance gender equity, from the classroom to the boardroom. She engages with senior leadership teams around the world, providing teaching, consulting and keynote talks to address the challenges of leadership and advancing organizational change and innovation. She earned her B.A. from Yale University and her Ph.D. from Harvard Business School.

1:30 PM (EDT): Firehose Session — URMA Members Share a Splashy Array of Expertise & Creativity (each presentation limited to 5 minutes)

SPEAKERS

Going Where Few Microphones Have Gone Before: Bringing University Research to the Podcast World — Nancy Bazilchuk, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Test Your Knowledge: Creating an Immersive Experience — David Barczak, University of Delaware
Learnings from Content Marketing — Edyta Zielinska, Thomas Jefferson University
Four Tips for More Effective Media Relations — John Toon, Georgia Tech
Keep Calm and Carry On: Covering International Field Research During a Pandemic — Alyssa LaFaro, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Animating Science for Impact — Jeffrey Chase, University of Delaware

July 16th Agenda

12 PM (EDT): Science in the Media – Popular Images and Public Perceptions (Forthcoming Book)

Science has profound effects on society, but public perceptions also carry crucial implications for science — affecting what research takes place and who becomes a scientist, and shaping whether laypeople heed the scientific community’s recommendations. This presentation will show how popular media influence audience beliefs about science and scientists. It also will illuminate how scientists and media producers can craft messages that bridge gaps between the scientific community and the public and foster engagement with science.

SESSION PANELISTS

Paul R. Brewer

Paul R. Brewer is a professor of communication and political science and international relations at the University of Delaware. He is also research director of UD’s Center for Political Communication and co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Public Opinion Research.

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His research has appeared in journals such as Public Opinion Quarterly, Public Understanding of Science and Science Communication, and he has published articles in magazines such as National Geographic and Skeptical Inquirer.

Barbara L. Ley

Barbara L. Ley is an associate professor of women and gender studies and of communication at the University of Delaware. Her teaching and research focus on public understandings of science, digital media and health promotion, and gender and digital culture. She is the author of From Pink to Green: Disease Prevention and the Environmental Breast Cancer Movement

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(Rutgers University Press, 2009). Her research has also appeared in journals such as the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Medical Anthropology, Public Understanding of Science, Science Communication, and Social Media + Society.

1:00 PM (EDT): So you want to set up a science communications training program for faculty …

This panel discussion will feature journalists from a variety of national media outlets. Find out how their world changed with the pandemic, what stories they want and how you should pitch them your experts and story ideas.

SESSION PANELISTS

Jacqueline Howard

Jacqueline Howard is a health reporter for CNN, covering the latest news in medicine and healthy living from the network’s world headquarters in Atlanta. She appears on CNN’s weekend morning show New Day and the afternoon programs CNN Right Now and CNN Newsroom and CNN International. She was a 2019 National Fellow at the USC Annenberg

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Center for Health Journalism and a 2020 Press Fellow at the United Nations Foundation. Previously, Howard served as senior science editor at The Huffington Post and host/producer of the video series “Talk Nerdy To Me.” She has appeared on The Steve Harvey Show to discuss health trends and served as the on-air talent in a series of educational videos for The Nature Conservancy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Big History Project. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and a bachelor’s degree in communication studies from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Purbita Saha

Purbita Saha is the senior editor at Popular Science. She helps plan, assign and publish digital content and magazine narratives and explainers, while also working on audience engagement and branching out to new platforms. She’s a proud graduate of the University of Connecticut Ecology and Journalism departments, and is a former editor from Audubon magazine. She lives and goes birding (a lot!) in northern New Jersey.

Maiken Scott

Maiken Scott is the host and executive producer of WHYY’s The Pulse — a national health and science radio show and podcast that explores the people and places at the heart of health and science. Since its launch in December 2013, The Pulse has crafted a unique, “ground-level” approach to telling compelling stories and breaking down complicated issues.

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The show airs on more than 75 public radio stations across the country and has a strong podcast following. For The Pulse, Scott has explored natural history museums as “time capsules for our planet,” Thomas Jefferson’s ill-fated attempts to study Native American languages, and why so many patients cry after waking up from anesthesia, just to name a few topics. She grew up in Karlsruhe, Germany (where Heinrich Hertz did his famous work on radio waves and an early version of the bicycle was invented), and moved to the U.S. in her early twenties. She studied journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia and also completed a graduate degree in American history there. Before hosting The Pulse, she was a reporter and producer at WHYY. She started as an intern at WHYY – and never left.

Past Conferences

To find out what types of things we cover at our conferences, check out our previous conference information by clicking on a conference graphic. Session videos and slides are available on our Member Resources page.