Staff Spotlight: Sherry Seethaler
May 13, 2024 | By Michelle Franklin
Trained in chemistry and biology, Sherry Seethaler knows how difficult it can be to convey scientific discoveries to others in ways that are inspiring and easily understood but not condescending. Her latest book provides guidance and lessons in how to effectively communicate deeply technical and scientific work to broader communities.
Q: Tell us about yourself.
Sherry Seethaler: I’m the director of education initiatives in the School of Physical Sciences. I’ve been at UC San Diego for 20 years. I earned my B.Sc. from the University of Toronto, my M. Phil. and M.S. from Yale and my Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.
Q: Can you describe your job?
SS: I teach research communications and design and lead educational programs. I was also the Science Questions Answered columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune for many years.
Q: What is the most challenging part of your job?
SS: Navigating red tape and bureaucracy often feels like a Rube Goldberg machine.
Q: What is the most enjoyable part of your job?
SS: Being surrounded by discoveries in the making at a great research university keeps my brain busy making new synaptic connections.
Sherry's new book provides a unique approach to developing the knowledge, skills and habits of mind to achieve communication goals.
SS: Effective communication is an integral part of the scientific process. It is also what ties together the whole ecosystem in which research functions, cultivating public and private support, and creating an environment in which diverse students of science can thrive.
Q: What is something that perhaps scientists don’t understand about effective communications?
SS: We need to stop treating it as something you just “pick up.” It requires knowledge, skills and habits of mind for handling hidden jargon, designing compelling visuals, choosing apt comparisons, composing logic stories, conveying the discovery process, clarifying uncertainty, interpreting data, avoiding communication backfires and communicating with empathy to build trust.
Q: What are you most proud of?
SS: It depends on the day, but holding my latest cellulose child, hot off the press, made me a little weepy.
Q: Excellent segue! Your latest book is titled, Beyond the Sage on the Stage: Communicating Science and Contemporary Issues Effectively. Tell us about it and who the intended audience is.
SS: Beyond the Sage on the Stage provides evidence-based practical communication lessons and debunks often-repeated communication myths for researchers, students, educators, changemakers and anyone who wants to have more productive conversations about science, technology, health, the environment, and the many complex issues of our times.
Q: What was the inspiration for writing this book?
SS: Throughout my career I have been driven by the desire to boost scientific understanding and to make scholarship on learning, reasoning and communicating useful and practicable. My first book, Lies, Damned Lies, and Science, did so for consumers of science and health information. The 2017 report by the National Academies, Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda, made it clear that it was high time to do the same for communicators of science and health information.
Q: What was the writing process like? How long did it take?
SS: It was seven years of wearing different hats — a detective sleuthing the evidence base, a scientist synthesizing and interpreting it, an architect designing the book’s logic structure, and my inner comedian keeping us all sane during the long journey of writing and revising.
Q: If you want readers to come away with one thing, what would it be?
SS: If you suffer from communication-related anxiety, the section on the physiology and biochemistry of breathing may change your life by demonstrating why the advice to “just take a deep breath” is not working for you, and what to do instead. Science spoiler alert: communication trainers’ advice often misses the mark because they don’t understand how carbon dioxide levels shape-shift hemoglobin to influence oxygen binding.
For most readers, the chapter on the backfire effect will be particularly eye-opening. It shows why our intuitions mislead us in high-stakes communication situations and details strategies to prevent more than a dozen kinds of backfires.
Q: Where is your favorite spot on campus?
SS: Anywhere outdoors on our beautiful campus, but especially walking through the various groves of trees. My dog sometimes does this thing called “dog trancing” under the trees. It’s bizarre but I can relate. Trees are calming. Although nature provided much needed respite, I could not have written this book without the fantastic UC San Diego Library.
Q: Speaking of books, what are you reading right now?
SS: I love finding thought-provoking reads in The Little Free Libraries in my community. I recently read the very validating Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I am currently reading Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue and Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee.
